All HSJ review processess are double-blind and peer-reviewed. The entire editorial flow is conducted through the online platform, under the administration of the Editor-in-Chief. Each submission will be reviewed for at least two reviewers who are expert in the field.

Editorial Flow

Once the manuscript has been submitted, the Editorial Team will verify that all requirements mentioned in the Submission Guidelines have been met or that the content falls within the editorial policies. After that, the submission will be forwarded from the Editor-in-Chief to a Responsible Editor, who will assess the initial merit, perform the data blinding and send it to at least two external reviewers specialized in the area. After acceptance, the reviewers will have 14 days to return the revised manuscript with relevant information, comments, doubts, and opinion on acceptance, rejection, or resubmission. Authors will receive the peer-reviewed manuscript, proceed with correction, if any is to be done, and must return it within 14 days.

Any manuscript correction, whether by the reviewers or by the authors, must be carried out exclusively via the online platform, with the activation of the review tool of the text editor (preferably MS Word), with the marking of the altered text.

When sending the requested corrections, authors must attach a letter detailing the responses. The manuscript will be sent for further reading and evaluation if the external reviewer requests it.

The Responsible Editor will finally give his opinion to the Editor-in-Chief, who will give the final word of acceptance or rejection of the manuscript.

After acceptance, the submission will be sent to the Copyediting stage and, later, to the Proofreading phase (preparation of proofs). After proofreading and final acceptance by the correspondence author, the article will be ready for online publication. It is estimated that the average time between submission and acceptance for publication is around 4 to 6 months.

Below is the OJS Workflow Chart for better visualization of the review process:

 

Ensuring blind peer-review

To ensure the integrity of blind peer review for journal submissions, care should be taken not to disclose the identity of authors and reviewers among each other during the process. This requires authors, editors, and reviewers (likely to submit documents to the system as part of the evaluation process) to take some precautions with the text and document properties:

(a) document authors should exclude names, replacing with "Author" instead of author names, article title;

(b) In Microsoft Office documents, the author ID must be removed from the document properties (in the File > Properties menu) by starting from File in the main menu and clicking on the following:

File > Save As ...> Tools (or Options on Mac)> Security Options ...> Remove personal information from file when saving> OK> Save. 

In PDFs, author names should also be removed from Document Properties under File in the Adobe Acrobat main menu.

Additional care should be taken by authors and reviewers and will be checked by editors and the editor-in-chief regarding the following:

• All author information should be kept on the Title Page.
• Use the third person to refer to work that authors have previously published.
• Replace author's reference names by [e.g., Anonymous - details omitted for double-blind reviewing].
• Do not include acknowledgments that may reveal the institution in which the study was developed.

 

Indication of preferred and non-preferred reviewers

The peer-review process is often arduous for the editors responsible for the submission's editorial flow. Selecting and receiving a positive response from specialized reviewers to carry out a voluntary analysis of a study can take months and delay the editorial workflow. However, the proper analysis of the submissions by professionals in the field ensures the quality of the review and the final result.

The Health Sciences Journal requests that authors make suggestions from possible reviewers (preferred reviewers) or non-preferred reviewers (which should be avoided). It is important to remember that the suggestions do not guarantee the reviewer's choice or disposal but serve as a guide for the editorial team. According to the Title Page template, the name of up to three preferred and two non-preferred reviewers should be entered. Below are guidelines on the reviewers' suggestions.

Preferred reviewers

• Choose someone who can contribute constructively to the analysis of the manuscript.
• The potential reviewer must have experience in the area, if possible, with related publications.
• The choice should be made preferably with the other authors.
• Try to identify foreign authors in order not only to contribute with different views on research but to help in the dissemination of scientific knowledge.
• It is recommended not only to choose potential reviewers who are recognized names in the field but also researchers at the beginning of their careers who can express interest and carry out quality reviews in a short time.
• It is essential to avoid conflicts of interest. Suggesting friends, acquaintances, or researchers from the same department/laboratory is not recommended and will probably be avoided if identified by the responsible editor.

Non-preferred reviewers

• Here it should be included people with potential conflicts of interest in the revision of the manuscript (friends, colleagues in the department/laboratory, chiefs, or people who, for some reason, have an interest in publishing the manuscript).
• Researchers who have some form of personal disagreement with any of the authors.
• Researchers who have some harmful competition bias between institutions. In these cases, it is possible that the reviewer identifies the study's origin and makes a biased evaluation, even with a double-blind evaluation process.
• Researchers who have some commercial tie with the study content.
• Researchers likely to decline the review request.

 

Transparency of the review process

In order to allow the transparency of the review process, we provide below the items of the Evaluation Questionnaire delivered to the external/ad hoc reviewers.

1. Is the topic current and relevant? Does the manuscript present important new information that warrants publication?
2. Does the Abstract clearly and concisely describe the content of the manuscript?
3. Is the study question adequately described? Have the hypotheses been outlined?
4. Are the methods described understandably? Do they follow the writing guidelines regarding selection, criteria, outcomes, biases, and types of analyses? Is it detailed enough to allow replication of the study?
5. Are the results adequately displayed? Is there a repetition of information in the text and tables/figures? Are interpretations and conclusions based on the results? Is the discussion based on recent data from the literature? Is there a description of the limitations of the study?
6. Are the references in line with the theme? Are they current and following the Submission Guidelines? Are there book chapters or references difficult to access?
7. Does the writing present spelling errors that prevent the correct interpretation of the text? Does the manuscript conform to scientific language? Is the use of the passive voice limited? Are there paragraphs that are too long and difficult to read?
8. Is the structure and length of the manuscript in line with the Recommendations? Too short, too long, or just right? Is the number of figures and tables sufficient, insufficient, or too many?
9. Assign a value to the publication priority in the Health Sciences Journal (1 lowest priority, 10 highest priority).
10. Assign an overall rating to the submission (excellent, good, fair, below average, or poor).
11. Please let us know if you have any conflicts of interest regarding the revised manuscript. If not, enter "none".
12. Comments for Authors - Suggestions and Corrections.
13. Confidential comments to the Editor
14. Would you like to receive the corrected submission version for further review?