Instructions for Authors
About the Journal
Chinese Journal of Nursing was established on May 1, 1954. It is the earliest and oldest comprehensive nursing academic journal in China. Supervised by China Association for Science and Technology, sponsored by the Chinese Nursing Association and published at home and abroad, Chinese Journal of Nursing mainly reports the leading scientific research achievements and clinical experience in the field of nursing science, as well as the nursing theory research that has a guiding effect on nursing practice.
The Journal is a semimonthly publication in A4 format with 128 pages. It is published on the 10th and 20th of each month both online and paper. Chinese standard publication number is CN.11-2234/R, while International Standard Serial Number（ISSN）is 0254-1769. It is aimed for clinical nurses, teachers, students and researchers engaged in clinical nursing, nursing education and scientific research in general and specialized hospitals, maternity and child institutions, scientific research institutes and medical colleges and universities at home and abroad.
Scope of the Journal
The purpose of Chinese Journal of Nursing is to implement the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party and the Country in health field, to carry out the principles of combining theory with practice, popularization with improvement, to reflect the significant progress of clinical nursing and scientific research in China, and to promote the academic exchange of nursing at home and abroad.
Academic contributions and achievements
Since its inception, this Journal has achieved many awards for its excellent academic and editing quality. It has made outstanding contributions in leading the development of nursing discipline, promoting nursing academic exchanges at home and abroad, and improving the academic research level of nursing staff.
The total score of comprehensive evaluation of Citation Index of Chinese Journal of Nursing ranked first in Chinese nursing journals for consecutive years. It was selected as 100 Outstanding Academic Journals of China, Chinese high-quality sci-tech journals, top 100 Chinese journals (academic journals) with digital influence, the key magazine of China technology, core journals of China Science Citation Database (CSCD), and A Guide to the Core Journals of China. It ranked the top 5 in the comprehensive ranking of Google academic Chinese journals in 2018, and the first in medical academic publications; it was supported under the Quality Construction Plan of Chinese scientific and technological journals by China Association for Science and Technology in 2018, and was selected as the journal project of China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan in 2019, and was also included in the Exhibition of Fine Journals to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Included database
This journal has been included by China Science Citation Database (CSCD), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (SinoMed), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, China Biomedical Literature Service System (SinoMed), VIP Journal Resource Integration Service Platform and other domestic platforms. It carries out academic exchanges with the world through the top paper platform of China Science and Technology information - Outstanding S&T Journals of China (F5000), CNKI Journal Translation Project, and realizes cross database retrieval with Web of Science through the ISI Web of Knowledge platform of CSCD. This journal has been included in dimensions, WHO COVID-19 database and other international databases, among which the articles published in 1982-1997 are included in PMC and PubMed databases.
Authorship and Contribution Details
All authors have significantly contributed to the research, they should have made substantial contributions to all of the following: (1) the conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) final approval of the version to be submitted. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgments section.
Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. Description should be divided in following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. One author should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as “corresponding author”.
Biomedical Ethics
When reporting studies on human beings, authors should indicate whether the procedures are in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional or regional) and with the Helsinki Declaration revised in 2000 (available at http://www.wma.net/e/policy/17-c_e.html). For prospective studies involving human subjects, authors are expected to mention about approval of regional/national/institutional or independent Ethics Committee or Review Board, obtaining informed consent from adult research participants. The age beyond which assent would be required can vary as per regional and/or national guidelines. Please ensure confidentiality of subjects by desisting from mentioning participants’ names, initials or hospital numbers, especially in illustrative material.
Evidence for approval by a local Ethics Committee must be supplied by the authors on demand. The journal will not consider any paper which is ethically unacceptable. A statement on ethics committee permission and ethical practices must be included in all research articles under the “Methods” section.
Conflict of Interest Disclosing
All authors must disclose any and all conflicts of interest, as they may have connections with an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript, and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflicts of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript. A conflict of interest may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that may inappropriately influence (or bias) the author’s decisions, work, or manuscript.
All authors are required to complete and submit the Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. Note: This form will be requested after a manuscript has been submitted, but authors should also include conflicts of interest disclosure in the Acknowledgment section of the submitted manuscript.
Role of Funding Source Declaration
All sources of funding should be declared as an acknowledgement at the end of the main text. Authors should declare the role of sponsors in the study, if any, e.g., the study design, data collection, data analysis / interpretation, manuscript writing, submission of the manuscript for publication, etc. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, it should also be stated.
Peer Review Policy
Only manuscripts of high relevance and suitability will enter into the peer review process, which includes at least two internationally acknowledged experts in the field, in order to ensure that all published manuscripts provide new scientific knowledge. We adopt the double-blind principle when the manuscripts enter into the peer review process.
Responsibilities of Reviewer URL: zh.zhhlzzs.com/EN/column/column12.shtml
Copyrights
Authors of the manuscripts for publication must sign the copyright transfer form of the papers in Chinese Journal of Nursing, affix an official seal and mail it to the editorial office or send the electronic version to the editorial office after scanning.
3. Proper attribution and credit for the published work.
Commercial Mode
① Each journal is sold to readers every 2 weeks with 25 RMB / copy. Articles also can be sold individually according to the page number with 0.5-1 RMB/ page. Readers can pay directly on the journal home page, official Wechat platform, or on the third-party database platform, like CNKI, Wanfang database.
Electronic Backup And Preservation
All electronic backup and preservation of the journal content before 2016 are available in CNKI, Wanfang database, and the other journal contents after 2016 are accessible in the Archiving page of this website
(http://zh.zhhlzzs.com/EN/article/showTenYearOldVolumn.do), CNKI, Wanfang database.
Report Specification
Accurate and complete reporting enables readers to fully appraise research, replicate it, and use it. For original articles, review articles and special issue submissions, we require authors to adhere to the relevant EQUATOR research reporting checklist（https://www.equator-network.org）.
EQUATOR checklists include:
·CONSORT checklist for reports of randomised trials and cluster randomised trials
·TREND checklist for non-randomised controlled trials
·PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
·STROBE checklist for observational research
·COREQ checklist for qualitative studies
·SQUIRE checklist for quality improvement
·TRIPOD checklist for prediction model development and/or validation
·AGREE checklist for clinical practice guidelines
Clinical Trial Registry
Chinese Journal of Nursing requires registration of clinical trials, and the clinical trial registration number should be included in the “Methods” section. For further information, please visit www.icmje.org.
Registration in the following trial registers is acceptable: http://www.chictr.org.cn/; http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/; http:// www.isrctn.org/; http://www.trialregister.nl/trialreg/index.asp; and http://www.umin.ac.jp/ctr and any registry that is a primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) (www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/index.html).
Retraction Policy
All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
Chinese Journal of Nursing will consider retracting a publication if:
Editors have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error).
The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication).
It constitutes plagiarism.
It reports unethical research.
Chinese Journal of Nursing abides by COPE Retraction Guidelines. (http://publicationethics.org/files/retraction%20guidelines_0.pdf).
Preparation of Manuscripts
All manuscripts must be submitted at http://www.zhhlzzs.com. Authors must be registered on this site to submit manuscript online. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their user name and password.
Manuscripts Requirement
Manuscript: Should be innovative, scientific and practical, with clear arguments, reliable information, refined text, clear structure, accurate and standardized data.
Title: Should be concise and eye-catching, reflecting the theme of the article.
Abstract: All research articles should be accompanied by abstracts of Chinese and English versions, which include the following four parts: objective, methods, results and conclusions.
Key words: List 3 to 8 key words according to MeSH.
Figure and table: Each figure or table should have a concise title. The table’s vertical and horizontal headings should be reasonably arranged, and the meaning of data should be expressed clearly. The figure should not be too large, and the ratio of height to width should be around 5:7. Photographs require good clarity and contrast.
Digital Number: Implementation of GB/T15835-2011 “Digital Usage in Publications”.
Statistical symbols: In accordance to the relevant provisions of GB/T3358.1-2009, GB/T3358.3-2009.
Abbreviation: Except for the abbreviations that can be used directly as stipulated in this journal, others should be described with their full names in Chinese at first appearance, and then their full Chinese or English names and abbreviations shall be indicated in parentheses.
References: References should be listed in the end of manuscript. According to GB/T7714-2015 “Rules for the Description of Information and Documentary References”, sequential coding shall be adopted, and marked in Arabic numerals plus square brackets according to the order in which they appear in the text. Among the authors in the references, the number of authors should be listed up to three; the first three authors should be listed followed by “et al” if there are more than three.
Special statement
Contribution: The cover letter and fund project certificate, etc., should be uploaded at the same time. The cover letter should indicate the opinion on the manuscript, no duplicate submission, no confidentiality, and no signature dispute, etc., and also indicate the author’s ranking and first author and corresponding author’s information. If there is a patent, please attach a copy of the patent certificate.
Expense: The author must pay 40 yuan (approximately $6) as processing fee at the same time with manuscript submission. After the manuscript is published, author’s remuneration will be provided, and the current issue of the journal will be posted for free. All the manuscripts employed in this journal are published in the forms of paper-based journals and network version at the same time.
Review time: The manuscripts sent to us will be reviewed and replied to the preliminary review within 2 weeks. Those who have not received the notice of the manuscript within 3 months are still in the process of peer review. The author is allowed to make different opinions for the rejection of manuscripts. If the author wishes to submit to the other journals, please contact us first, and do not submit to more than one journal.
Fast Track: The journal opens up a “fast track” for internationally leading innovative scientific research or first internationally reported papers. For papers that require to be published in fast track, the author shall provide a description of the innovation of the paper and an update report, attached together with review forms of two experts from different institutions. Manuscripts meeting these criteria can be reviewed and published in a timely manner.
Contact: Please do not send manuscripts and remittances to individuals. For matters related to the manuscript, the editorial department will contact the corresponding author, and author’s remuneration and free journals will be posted to the corresponding author.