Aim & Scope

The International Journal of Contemporary Psychiatry (IJCP) is the official journal of the Psychiatry Department of Kasr Al Ainy, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University. It is published  on bi-annual basis and allows free of charge publication.

IJCP is a peer reviewed journal that aims to disseminate state of the art information & knowledge on significant and exceptional clinical studies in psychiatry, as well as research developments in the mental health field. Using a language that can be comprehended by the vast majority of mental health professionals worldwide.

The scope of the journal comprises broad areas of psychiatry, psychiatric disorders and mental health research.

Manuscript Submission

The International Journal of Contemporary Psychiatry (IJCP)‎ implementes a web-based manuscript submission and tracking system to accelerate the peer review process and shorten the time from manuscript submission to publication decision. The Journal will not accept manuscripts and letters by mail.

Please visit the manuscript submission site to submit your paper and either create a new account or use your existing account. Then follow the instructions to upload your manuscript.

Types of Articles

Review Articles and Meta-analyses

Review articles are intended to bring together important information on a topic of general interest to psychiatry. The text is usually within 5,000 words with an abstract of no more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 50 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts or references). Additional tables or figures can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online.  

Research Articles

Articles are reports of original work that embodies scientific excellence in psychiatric medicine and advances in clinical research. Articles will typically contain new data from a sizable series of patients or subjects. The text is usually within 3,500 words, which does not include an abstract of more than 250 words, a maximum of 5 tables and figures (total), and up to 40 references. Word count includes only the main body of text (i.e., not tables, figures, abstracts or references). Additional tables can be submitted in a separate file as supplemental data for posting online. (See Supplemental Data for what types of data and formats are acceptable for posting online.)

Editorials

The Editor primarily solicits editorials.

Brief commentaries

Brief commentaries (1000-1200 words) on issues of interest to the field can be submitted for consideration.

Letters to the Editor

Brief letters (maximum of 500 words, including references) will be considered if they include a cover letter indicating that the correspondence is “for publication.” Novel case reports and other uncontrolled observations should be submitted as Letters to the Editor. Case reports will be peer reviewed; authors must provide a list of 4 suggested reviewers and their e-mail addresses. Such letters must include the title and author of the article and the month and year of publication. Letters that do not meet these specifications will be returned unreviewed. Letters will be published on a space-available basis.

Manuscript preparation

Cover Letter ‎

Manuscripts should be accompanied by a Cover Letter where the authors have the opportunity to speak about the originality of the presented work and any other information the authors wish to convey to the Editorial Office.

Title page

The title page should appear as a separate sheet bearing the title (without article type), author names and affiliations, and a footnote with the corresponding author's full contact information, including address and e-mail address.

Abstract

All Review Articles and New Research submissions should include structured abstracts with the following information under the headings indicated: Objective—the primary purpose of the article; Methods—data sources, subjects, design, measurements, data analysis; Results—key findings; and Conclusions—implications, future directions.

Keywords

Keywords should be added after the abstract ranging from 3-10 words. Do not repeat words found in the title of the manuscript. Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Main Manuscript

• Introduction: should explain the background to the study, its aims, a summary of the existing literature, why this study was necessary, or its contribution to the field.

• Methods:The methods section should include:

1. The aim, design and setting of the study
2. The characteristics of participants or description of materials
3. A clear description of all processes, interventions and comparisons. Generic drug names should generally be used. When proprietary brands are used in research, include the brand names in parentheses
4. The type of statistical analysis used, including a power calculation if appropriate

• Results: This should include the findings of the study, including, if appropriate, results of statistical analysis, which must be included either in the text or as tables and figures.
• Discussion: This section should discuss the implications of the findings in the context of existing research and highlight the study's limitations.
• Conclusions: This should clearly state the main conclusions and explain the importance and relevance of the study reported.

Tables

Each table should be uploaded as a separate file. Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and must be cited in the text in sequence. Tables should be kept as simple as possible, and a graphical representation used instead wherever possible. Table titles should be complete but brief. Information other than that defining the data should be presented as footnotes.

Figures

Each figure should be uploaded as a separate file. The figures should be numbered and uploaded according to the order of their citation in the main text. Figure legends should be provided in the main manuscript file. Preferred file formats: TIFF, PNG, JPEG.

The file size of each figure should not exceed 10 MB.

Reference Style

• The reference style accepted for the manuscripts submitted for the IJCP‎ is the APA style.
• References in the body of your essay: The APA in text reference is in the format (author, date).
• Reference List: Your reference list should be ordered alphabetically by author and then chronologically by year of publication.
• Example: Cheung, J. M. Y., Bartlett, D. J., Armour, C. L., Laba, T. L., & Saini, B. (2018). To drug ‎or not to drug: A qualitative study of patients’ decision-making processes for ‎managing insomnia. Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 16(1), 1-26. ‎doi:10.1080/15402002.2016.1163702‎

Publication fees

Publication in the International Journal of Contemporary Psychiatry (IJCP)‎ is free. Authors will not be asked to pay any Article Publishing Charge (APC).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Manuscripts reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must:

• Include a statement on ethics approval and consent (even where the need for approval was waived).
• Include the name of the ethics committee that approved the study and the committee’s reference number, if appropriate.

Studies involving animals must include a statement on ethics approval and for experimental studies involving client-owned animals, authors must also include a statement on informed consent from the client or owner according to the declaration of Helsinki.

Funding

All sources of funding for the research reported should be declared. The role of the funding body in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript should be declared.

Copyright Transfer

Upon acceptance of an article, you will be asked to transfer the copyright. This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included in the submission, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. 

After Acceptance

Online proof correction

Corresponding authors will receive an e-mail including the final PDF version of their manuscript. Authors are obligated to proofreading their manuscript within seven days. Corrections should be done in the PDF file using the annotation method. 

Corrections should be limited to mistakes that occur during the production process. Any changes concerning the content of the text will require re-evaluation and approval by the editorial office.