The Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (“Journal”) is an open access, interdisciplinary, international publication that seeks to advance knowledge in child mental health and foster debate and discussion around critical topics. Manuscripts are welcome on any topic relevant to child and adolescent mental health, including psychiatry, psychology, pediatrics, pharmacology, nursing, social work and social policy (advocacy).
The Journal publishes four issues per year. There are no publication charges.
MANUSCRIPT TYPE
Manuscripts types are listed below with their maximum word length. Exceeding word limits will not be accepted without permission from the Editor. Word limits exclude the abstract, references, tables and figures.
Original Research – 4,000 words
Brief Research Communications – 2,500 words
Review Articles – 4,000 words
Commentary – 2,500 words
Letters to Editor – 700 words
Manuscripts are considered with the understanding that they represent original material and have not been submitted or accepted elsewhere, either in whole or in part.
Original Research / Brief Research Communications
Original Research consists of original data or analysis not published elsewhere. Original research can be qualitative and/or quantitative.
Brief Research Communications are expected to have similar rigor to full-length original research articles, but may report on preliminary or pilot data.
Manuscripts submitted to these sections focused on aspects of psychopharmacology may be considered for the Journal’s Psychopharmacology Column.
Review Articles
Review Articles are accepted either as submissions by authors or as solicited by the editor. Authors in their reviews should seek to 1) not duplicate existing reviews available elsewhere, and 2) critically appraise the literature for gaps in knowledge and controversial areas.
Commentary
This section of the Journal provides space to address clinically and/or public health relevant child mental health topics. Criteria for acceptability will be whether the submission introduces novel concepts or addresses current controversies or dilemmas in the field. Authors must rigorously appraise, review and cite the relevant literature as part of their submission. For these submissions, the Editor may identify an independent discussant to provide expert opinion in response to the commentary.
Letters to the Editor
Letters should relate specifically to articles published in the Journal and be submitted within four months of the relevant article’s publication. Include a descriptive title. No tables and figures are allowed. Once accepted, the Journal will contact the author of the identified article to offer an opportunity to reply. The author(s) of the letter waives the right to review or respond to the original author(s)’ reply. All letters are subject to editing and shortening. Not all letters will be published.
ETHICS
Research involving humans must have been conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/
All papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval.
For research articles, authors are required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal should be stated. Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. Identifying patient information should not be included in manuscripts.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other ties that are, or might appear to be, a conflict of interest. Authors must provide a listing of all current financial ties with for-profit enterprises which may include industry research funding, stockholdings/ownership interest, consulting relationships and speaker’s bureaus. Financial benefit from instruments, technology or treatments must also be disclosed. If all of the authors have nothing to disclose, include the statement: “The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.” The submitting author(s) should ensure they confirm the conflict of interest declaration with all their co-authors.
AUTHORSHIP
The Journal adheres to the definition of authorship as set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html
This includes the expectation that all authors meeting the four criteria described by the ICMJE:
“Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement 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.”
Persons making limited contributions not meeting the level of authorship may be recognized in the acknowledgment section (with their permission).
COPYRIGHT
Authors must submit written permission from the copyright owner to use direct quotations, tables or illustrations that have appeared in copyrighted form elsewhere, along with complete details about the source. Permission fees are the responsibility of the submitting author. At the time of submission, the corresponding or lead author is required to indicate agreement to the following statement:
The author(s) hereby transfer(s), assign(s), or otherwise convey(s) all copyright ownership to the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the event that such work is published in the Journal. I (we) warrant that the material contained in the manuscript represents original work and has not been published or under consideration for publication elsewhere.
CLINICAL TRIALS
A clinical trial is any study that prospectively assigns human subjects to intervention or comparison groups to evaluate the cause- and-effect relationship between an intervention and an outcome. Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract. Trials should be registered in one of the recognized trial registries and require the minimum registration data set as described by the ICMJE (www.icmje.org/faq.pdf).
MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING AND PEER REVIEW
Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission system at http://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/jcacap. All manuscripts are submitted to an anonymous peer review process. A consulting reviewer may be added at any stage of the review process to address technical questions. Reviewers’ comments will be sent with the editor’s decision. However, manuscripts that clearly do not fit the Journal’s format, mission, or publication priorities will be returned without review. Accepted papers are subject to editorial revisions and copyediting. Corrected proofs must be returned within 48 hours.
Important Note: Changes that have been made to conform to Journal style will stand if they do not alter the authors’ meaning. Only the most critical changes to the accuracy of the content will be made. Changes that are stylistic or are a reworking of previously accepted material will be disallowed. The Editor reserves the right to deny any changes that do not affect the accuracy of the content.
PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS
All submissions must be formatted for 8 ½ by-11-inch paper with 1-inch margins, in 10-point or larger font, double spaced. Each manuscript must contain the following elements, ordered as below.
General
Title (max 15 words)
Name, address, telephone, fax and e-mail address of the corresponding author
Full name, academic degrees, affiliation, city, state/province
and country for each author
Acknowledgment paragraph (max 120 words), with any necessary credit lines and description of any funding or support
A conflict of interest declaration. If none, explicitly state this.
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Structured abstract (max 250 words):
- Objective: the primary purpose of the study
- Method: design of the study, main outcome measures and age range of subjects
- Results: key findings
- Conclusions: including clinical significance
- The abstracts should be included in both the online abstract submission section, as well as within the full manuscript file.
Key words: 3 to 5 key words to be used for indexing
Trial Registry name, URL and registration identification number (if applicable)
Spell out all abbreviations (other than units of measure) the first time they are used
Do not use footnotes in the text
Always use the generic term for a drug. When it is necessary to refer to the proprietary name, list it in parentheses after the generic term, followed by the register mark ®
References
Consult a recent issue for sample references prepared following American Psychological Association 6th Edition for all in-text citations and reference list formatting.
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Reference list:
- Arrange in alphabetical order by author name and chronologically by author (do not number).
- Unpublished or submitted manuscripts or personal communications should only be noted in the text, not the reference list
- Include “in press” manuscripts in the reference list
Tables and Figures
Tables and figures should comprise no more than a total of 5 double-spaced manuscript pages. The Journal does not publish tables or figures that have appeared in other publications. Cite previously published materials only for reference.
Do not submit tables as picture files (JPG, BMP, etc)
Number tables consecutively in order of appearance in the text
Cite each table in the text and note approximately where it should be placed
If abbreviations are necessary, define them in a key within the caption
Checklist
For research manuscripts, review the EQUATOR checklist relevant to the research study design to ensure the manuscript is complete. http://www.equator-network.org/
For example, for a randomized controlled trial, review the CONSORT checklist, for observation studies review the STROBE checklist, for systematic reviews, review the PRISMA checklist, etc.
Manuscripts missing key checklist elements will be returned to the author and NOT sent out for review. If none of the checklists are applicable to your research, state the reason in your cover letter.
Language
Articles are accepted in English or French.
If the author is not proficient in the manuscript language, they should have someone proficient in the language review the manuscript BEFORE submitting it to the Journal. If there are excessive grammatical problems in the submitted manuscript, it will be returned to the author and NOT sent out for review.