Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet minimum standards of quality. Before submitting, please ensure that the study design and research argument are structured and articulated properly. The title should be concise and the abstract should be able to stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper. When you're satisfied that your submission meets this standard, please follow the checklist below to prepare your submission.

All manuscripts must be submitted in MS Word format using Time New Roman or Calibri font size 12 and double-spacing.

The author must always retain a copy. All the authors must have approved the final manuscript. Pages should be numbered consecutively in the lower right corner. The following contributions are accepted (words counts exclude abstracts, tables and references):

1. Original research (between 1000 and 3500 words)
2. Letter to the editors (Up to 400 words)
3. Scientific letters (Less than 700 words): one table or graphs and not more than 5 references
4. Review articles (Up to 1800 words): Most review articles are published as part of the continuous professional development (CPD) programme of the Faculty of Family Medicine, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria and NFMJ. A scientific editor is appointed to approve topics, invite authors and review the articles before they are independently peer-reviewed. All articles are reviewed by Family Physicians/topic specialists. Review articles outside the CPD programme are welcomed. Once accepted they may be published in full articles available online.
5. Case report (between 1000 to 2500): This may be a special report, a unique clinical experience and a short report of original research with a maximum of two tables or illustrations and not more than 15 references.

FORMAT

TITLE PAGE:  All articles must have a title page with the following information and in this order: Title of the article; surname, initials qualification and affiliation of each author; The name; Institutional affiliation, e-mail address and telephonic contact details of all authors; at least 5 keywords.

ABSTRACT: All articles should have an abstract. The structured abstract for an Original Research should be between 250 and 350 words and should consist of four paragraphs labelled “Background, methods, result, and conclusion”. It should briefly describe the problem or issue being addressed in the study, how the study was performed, the major results, and what the authors conclude from these results. The abstract for other types of articles should be no longer than 200 words and need not follow the structured abstract format.

KEYWORDS: all articles should include keywords. Up to five words or short phrases should be used, use terms for the medical subject headings (MeSH) of Index Medicus when available and appropriate. Keywords are used to index the article and may be published with the abstract.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: in a separation section, acknowledge any financial support received or possible conflict of interest this section may also be used to acknowledge substantial contributions to the research or preparation of the manuscript made by persons other than the authors.

IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICIES/PRACTICE: all articles must include  implications for policymakers and or implications for clinical practice

CONTRIBUTIONS OF EACH AUTHOR: all articles must include the contributions of each of the authors to the work (conceptualization, review of literature, design of methodology, data collection, data analysis and presentation of findings, discussion of findings,  writing of the initial draft, final proofreading and authorisation of completion of work).

REFERENCES: cite references in numerical order in the text, in superscript format. Do not use brackets. In the references section, references must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited, not alphabetically. The style for references should follow the format set forth in the “uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals prepared by the international committee of medical journal editors. All references should be available for online confirmation.

References are presented in Vancouver style, with standard index Medicus abbreviations for journal titles. Authors should try to limit the number of references to no more than 35