ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Liječnički vjesnik (LV), the official peer-reviewed journal of the Croatian Medical Association, publishes editorials, professional and research articles, review articles, case reports, drugs and methods reviews, preliminary scientific and professional communications, commentaries, letters to the editor, book reviews, and other contributions, provided they have not been published in the same format in another journal or book. The journal is published six times a year.
The contents of Liječnički vjesnik may be used free of charge for educational and research purposes, with full reference to the source. Any other use is prohibited without express permission by the publisher.

PAPER SUBMISSION / MANUSCRIPT PUBLICATION

All contributions should be mailed to: Uredništvo Liječničkog vjesnika, Hrvatski liječnički zbor, Šubićeva 9, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. (telephone +385 1 46 93 310)
LV follows the instructions for the manuscript preparation published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – ICMJE (http://icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf) and the World Association of Medical Editors – WAME (http://www.wame.org), and recommends the same to authors. Ethical standards comply with those of the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE (https://publicationethics.org/resources) and the Council of Science Editors – CSE (https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/wp-content/uploads/entire_whitepaper.pdf).
The complete manuscript, including all the supplements, should be sent in one printed copy, and submitted electronically to: lijecnicki-vjesnik@hlz.hr. The text should be double-spaced, typed in 11-point font, printed on one side. Each section of the manuscript should begin on a new page. It is required to include with the manuscript the following documents (to be found at: https://lijecnicki-vjesnik.hlz.hr):
1. Checklist for Authors;
2. Conflict of Interest Statement;
3. Statement of Authorship and Copyright Transfer.
Manuscripts submitted without the above attachments will not be considered.
Manuscripts are not published in the order in which they are received by the editorial board. Manuscripts and other submitted material are not returned to senders.

AUTHORSHIP

Individuals designated as authors must meet the criteria for authorship. Following the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – ICMJE, authors are required to include with the manuscript a written statement indicating that they have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; that they have drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; that they give final approval of the version to be published; and that they agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Individuals who do not meet the criteria for authorship, e.g. persons who have provided intellectual assistance, technical help, or special equipment or materials, should be listed under Acknowledgements.
It is required to include with the manuscript a written statement indicating that the paper has not been previously published or submitted/accepted for publication in another journal, that all the authors have read it and approved, and the statement that there is no financial or any other conflict of interest. Also, it is required to include with the manuscript a statement that the authors of the paper agree to transfer their copyright to the journal.

PLAGIARISM AND RETRACTION OF PAPERS

All papers are screened for originality and plagiarism, copying, the duplicate and redundant submission/publication of texts and images from other sources (with checker tools such as Duplichecker, Plagiarism Checker, Plagium, PlagScan). Plagiarized papers or papers unethically published in any other way will be retracted following COPE’s Retraction Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/files/retraction%20guidelines.pdf).
The editorial board recommends authors to register with ORCID (https://orcid.org) and, when submitting a paper, to provide their ORCID ID number that will be shown at the end of the paper and before the References to provide access to information on authorship and publications and to ensure better visibility.
All individuals who have participated in the paper and who are not authors should be mentioned under Acknowledgements.

CATEGORIZATION, FORMATTING AND WORD LIMIT FOR PAPERS

Liječnički vjesnik publishes the following peer-reviewed articles: editorials, original research articles, professional articles, short communications/brief reports, preliminary communications, review articles and well-documented case reports.

Editorial: 1200 words maximum; up to 1 figure or table; up to 20 references; 3 – 6 keywords; unstructured abstract up to 300 words (if applicable).

Original Research Article: 6,000 words maximum; up to 6 figures and 6 tables; unlimited number of references; 3 – 6 keywords; structured abstract up to 300 words (except for articles on the history of medicine that may have an unstructured abstract).

Professional Article: 5,000 words maximum; up to 5 figures and 5 tables; unlimited number of references; 3 – 6 keywords; structured abstract up to 300 words (except for articles on the history of medicine that may have an unstructured abstract).

Review paper (presentation): maximum 10,000 words; up to 8 figures and 8 tables, the form of a scientific paper, is a scientific paper that contains an original, concise and critical presentation of an area or part of it in which the author actively works. The role of the author’s original contribution in the field must be emphasized, considering the already published works and the review of those works. The review contains the latest information on the current state of development and direction (so-called state-ofthe-art reviews). They can be written by one or a group of authors and are usually written at the request of the editor. Mandatory review. information on the current state of development and direction (so-called state-of-the-art reviews).

Short Communication, Brief Report: 1,200 words maximum; up to 3 figures or tables; up to 15 references; 3 – 6 keywords; structured abstract up to 300 words.

Preliminary Communication: 1,200 words maximum; up to 3 figures or tables; up to 15 references; 3 – 6 keywords; structured abstract up to 300 words.

Case Report (with Review of the Literature): 5,000 words maximum; up to 5 figures or tables; unlimited number of references; 3 – 6 keywords; unstructured abstract up to 300 words. Sould be written according to the CARE case report guidelines

Letter to the Editor: 1,000 words maximum; up to 7 references.

Erratum: enables correction of errors made in writing, printing or in the process of publication of an article.

To be sent to:

Liječnički vjesnik, Uredništvo, Hrvatski liječnički zbor, Šubićeva 9, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia, or via email: lijecnicki-vjesnik@hlz.hr.

ARTICLE / MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

The manuscript should include:

  1. Title page with the title in Croatian and in English, and the names and surnames of the author(s). Below should follow the name of the author’s/authors’ affiliation(s), and the name of the institution(s) where the work was performed. The name and surname of each author should be repeated, with his/her academic degree, and the name of the institution where he/she works. It is required to include the address of the corresponding author whom the editorial board can contact. A short title of the article, that will be printed as current title, should be suggested at the bottom of the page.
  1. Abstract and Keywords

The second page should include a structured summary in Croatian and in English (up to 300 words), with the aim of the study/ research, the material (participants) and methods, results and conclusions. New and important aspects of the study or observation should be emphasized in the abstract. Below should be given four to six keywords or short terms in Croatian and in English, to assist in indexing the article and to be published with the abstract. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list of Index Medicus should be used for keywords. General, plural and multi-word concepts (e.g. use of “and”, “or”) should be avoided. The abstract should not include references. The abstract must be written in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations.

  1. Introduction

The introduction provides the purpose and rationale for conducting the study or the research. It is recommended to cite only relevant references, without any data or conclusions.

  1. Procedures (methods)

The selection and all the important characteristics of the participants or laboratory animals studied or observed should be listed. Generic names should be used for drugs and chemicals. All measurements should be given in SI units. In Croatian language texts, a decimal comma should be used. Procedures familiar from the literature should be described in general outline, providing full reference details. Devices should be identified, including the manufacturer’s name and address in parentheses. Statistical procedures should be described in detail to enable the reader to calculate the stated probabilities from the original results. In the case of computer data processing, the statistical software used should be specified. Papers dealing with research involving human subjects should state that the research was conducted following the ethical standards as given in the Declaration of Helsinki of 2000, as amended in 2002 and 2004. The name of any ethical committee that has approved the conduct of the research should also be stated. Participants’ names, initials or ID numbers should not be included.

  1. Results

Relevance of data should be statistically corroborated. SI units should be used. Statistical methods should be described in detail, to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Where possible, findings should be quantified and presented with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty Results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. All the data in the tables or illustrations should not be repeated in the text, but rather only the most important observations should be emphasized or summarized.

  1. Discussion

New and important aspects of the study, and its results, should be emphasized. It is not recommended to repeat in detail data or any other material given in the Introduction or in the Results section. It is important to explain the significance of the results obtained, their limitations, and implications for future research, avoiding, however, making statements and drawing conclusions not completely confirmed by the obtained data. Observations from the study should be compared with other relevant studies. When necessary, new hypotheses may be given, but clearly labelled as such.

  1. Conclusions

The main conclusions are drawn based on the author’s or authors’ own results, separately after the discussion.

  1. Statistics

Statistical methods should be described in detail in the Methods section, to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the reported results. Where possible, findings should be quantified and presented with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty. The statistical software used should be specified.

  1. Ethics and ethical standards

Papers dealing with experiments involving human subjects should clearly state that the procedures were conducted following the ethical standards of an institutional or national committee responsible for experiments involving human subjects, and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, as revised in 1983. Participants’ names and/or surnames should not be published, particularly in illustrative materials. Papers dealing with experiments on animals should state that an institutional or national standard for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. If in doubt about plagiarism, and having assessed the problem, the editorial board will refer the material to a responsible ethics committee or to an academic integrity committee.

  1. Abbreviations

Only standard abbreviations should be used. The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parentheses should be used at the first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement. Abbreviations should be avoided in the manuscript title.

  1. Symbols

Symbols used in the text should be explained. A detailed list of symbols may be given in an appendix.

  1. Tables

Table titles and text in tables should be bilingual, in Croatian and in English. Tables should be presented on a separate page. They should not be submitted as photographs. Each table should have a title and be numbered consecutively in the order it appears in the text. Tables should be self-explanatory and simple. Table legends should be given below the table, and may include a reference to data in the table indicated by a superscript figure or letter. Results presented elsewhere in the article (e.g. in an illustration), should not be repeated in the table. If a table originating from other sources is used, permission for such publication should be obtained from the respective publisher/author.

  • It is desirable that tables are not submitted as images, but integrated in the text. It is recommended to design tables as simply as possible.
  1. Figures

Figure descriptions and text in figures should be bilingual, in Croatian and in English. All figures should be professionally drawn or photographed. Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should be clear enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication. Each figure should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which it appears in the text, have the author’s name and a clear mark showing which is the upper side of the figure. Each illustration should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which it appears in the text, and a clear mark showing which is the upper side of the illustration. Illustrations should be made in a quality appropriate for print publication. Photocopied images or photographs are not suitable for reproduction. Photographs of individuals will be published only with the written consent of the person photographed (or his/her guardian), or the individual should be rendered unrecognizable (concealing the eyes, face, etc.). If a figure is taken from other sources, permission for such reproduction obtained from the respective editor/ author should be submitted. If submitted in electronic format, figures/illustrations should be in a high resolution TIFF or JPEG file format, a minimum of 1,500 pixels wide. Figures/illustrations submitted in other formats may be accepted only with the prior consent of the editorial board. The editorial board reserves the right not to publish any figures/illustrations that fail to meet the above requirements.

  • Figures (photographs, graphs, images…) should be submitted separately, in as high a quality and resolution as possible (.tif,. png). Each figure in the text, in addition to its own title, should have a generic title (Figure 1). The generic title should include

an ordinal number expressed as an Arabic numeral, numbered consecutively according to the order in which it appears in the text. Figure titles and descriptions are considered to be a part of the text, and not part of the figure/illustration. Therefore they should be included in the text, and not in the figure.

  1. References

LV strictly follows the Vancouver citation style (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors – Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Sample references at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

References are cited in ordinal numbers, according to the order in which it appears in the text (the first reference cited is number

1). In manuscripts with six or less authors, all the authors should be listed; if there are seven authors, or more, the first three should be listed, followed by “et al.”. Journals should be cited with abbreviations as used by Index Medicus (http://www.pubmed.gov). Citing references – examples:

Journal article

Golubić D, Rapić D, Breitenfeld V. Neka klinička, dijagnostička i terapijska zapažanja o humanoj trihinelozi [Some clinical, diagnostic and therapeutic observations on human trichinellosis]. Lijec Vjesn. 1985;107:11–4. Croatian.

Journal supplement

Lundstrom I, Nylander C. An electrostatic approach to membrane bound receptors. Period Biol. 1983;85(Suppl 2):53–60.

Books and monographs

Individual author(s)

Eisen HN. Immunology: an introduction to molecular and cellular principles of the immune response. 5th ed. New York: Harper and Row; 1974, str. 406.

Editor

Dausset J, Colombani J, editor. Histocompatibility testing. Copenhagen: Munksgaard; 1973, str. 12–8.

Chapter in a book

Weinstein L, Swartz MN. Pathogenic properties of invading microorganisms. In: Sodeman WA jr, Sodeman WA, editor. Pathogenic

physiology: mechanism of disease. Philadelphia: WB Saunders; 1974, str. 457–72.

Article on the Internet

Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. 2002; 102(6):[about p. 3]. Dostupno na: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm. [Pristupljeno 12. kolovoza 2002.]

  1. Letter of submission

The letter of submission should include the name, address and telephone number (landline and mobile) of the corresponding author who will communicate with the LV editorial board, and will be responsible for arranging the necessary amendments with other authors. The type of article should be stated in the letter. The filled-in Checklist for Authors, the Statement of Authorship, and the Conflict of Interest Statement must be enclosed with the letter (https://lijecnicki-vjesnik.hlz.hr). Manuscripts submitted without these enclosures will not be considered.

  1. Possible conflict of interest

All sources of funding (including private, public and commercial) of papers submitted for publication, as well as possible authors’ conflict of interest (informal agreements with commercial companies, consultancy work. and sponsored lectures on behalf of manufacturers or dealers of pertaining materials) must be clearly disclosed at the end of manuscript under the heading „Possible conflict of interest“. Financial and material support should also be listed.

  1. Acknowledgements

Individuals who helper in study or manuscript preparations and are not listed as coauthors should be listed under the heading “Acknowledgements”.
For more information, please visit: http://www.icmje.org/ethical_4conflicts.html

REVIEW PROCESS

Each manuscript is treated as highly confidential material, and the review process is performed anonymously. The submitted manuscripts are firstly assessed by the editorial board, and then sent to a minimum of two reviewers for a double-blind peer review. Each submitted manuscript is assigned a number and an ID. The authors are informed that the manuscript has been received and a number assigned. The authors are obliged to use such an ID number in all correspondence. A corresponding author acts on behalf of the others in the process related to the manuscript’s publication. Manuscripts and other submitted material are not returned to senders.

After all the submitted reviews have been considered by the editorial board, they are returned to the author(s) for checking and amendment. The amended manuscript may be resent for another revision to the same reviewers, depending on the nature of the reviewers’ comments. Accepted manuscripts are not necessarily published in the order in which they are received. The views expressed are those of the author.

Manuscripts are not returned, and all printed contributions are owned by the Croatian Medical Association. The contents of Liječnički vjesnik may be reproduced providing the source is acknowledged in the form: “taken from Liječnički vjesnik”.

Each published article is assigned a DOI (Digital Object Identifier), a unique identifier for every article published in Liječnički vjesnik. The editorial board provides one copy of Liječnički vjesnik for each author (or for a corresponding author, if the manuscript was submitted by a group of authors).

  • Recommendations for formatting a manuscript to enable easier XML creation from the text.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WRITING ABSTRACTS IN SUPPLEMENTS PUBLISHED IN THE “LIJEČNIČKI VJESNIK” JOURNAL

Every year, a limited number of supplements with abstracts of presentations held at professional or scientific meetings are published in the professional journal of the Croatian Medical Association, “Liječnički vjesnik”. Generally, this includes a maximum of 6 supplements per year (in addition to the supplement of the Student Section of the Croatian Medical Association), regardless of whether the supplement is in printed or electronic form. Only abstracts written in accordance with the rules of the “Liječnički vjesnik” journal shall be published in the supplements. All parties interested in publishing a supplement in the “Liječnički vjesnik” journal (professional societies of the Croatian Medical Association, organizers of professional/scientific meetings) should express their interest in publishing a supplement at least 6 months before the desired date. The final decision on whether a supplement will be published is made by the Editorial Board of the “Liječnički vjesnik” journal. The quality of supplements is assessed by the Editor for Supplements who is also a member of the Editorial Board of the “Liječnički vjesnik” journal. The costs of supplement publishing shall be covered by the organizer of the meeting at which the abstracts are presented. The abstract must be written in accordance with the ICMJE Recommendations. Abstracts written in Croatian or English can be published in the supplement of the “Liječnički vjesnik” journal. The abstract that is to be used in the supplement can contain a maximum of 2700 characters. The abstract must be structured, which means that it must include at least the following subheadings: objective, methods, results, conclusions. A maximum of one table can be attached to the abstract. The summary must not contain any abbreviations or references. The title of the abstract must be in the same language as the language in which the abstract is written, and the names and surnames of the authors should be listed below the title. Below that part, the institutions where the authors work should be listed, marked with the appropriate number in superscript as indicated next to their surnames, as well as the e-mail addresses of the corresponding authors. The academic titles of the authors shall not be stated. Below the abstract, authors should list four to six keywords or short terms in Croatian and English to assist in the searching and indexing. Terms from the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list should be used for keywords. General, plural and multi-word concepts (e.g. use of “and”, “or”) should be avoided. The instructions for writing abstracts are equally valid for writing abstracts in Croatian and English. Furthermore, the instructions for writing abstracts are equally valid for writing abstracts that will be published in printed and/or electronic form. The authors of the abstracts are responsible for the linguistic correctness of the manuscript, unless otherwise agreed with the Editor.