Instructions For Authors

INTRODUCTION

The AJPPS, a professional journal sponsored by the Nigerian Association of Pharmacists and Pharmaceutical Scientists in the Americas (NAPPSA), aims to foster close communication and intellectual exchange between the clinical practice of pharmacotherapeutics and the ever- expanding discoveries and innovations emanating from the pharmaceutical sciences. AJPPS publishes novel and significant findings in the various areas of pharmacotherapy and pharmaceutical sciences impacting human and veterinary therapeutics, including:

Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Drug Evaluation and Clinical Trials
Drug Research and Development
Epidemiology and Public Health
Ethnomedicine and Phytomedicines
Medical Science and Practice
Microbiology and Immunology
Neuroscience and Behavioral Sciences
Nutrition and Nutraceuticals
Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry
Pharmaceutical Education
Pharmaceutical Technology and Manufacturing
Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery
Pharmacology and Toxicology
Pharmacotherapy/Pharmaceutical Care
Pharmacy Profession and Advocacy
Physiology and Pathology
Veterinary Science and Medicine

TYPES OF MANUSCRIPT

American Journal of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Sciences publishes manuscripts in the following categories:

Original Research Articles describing new previously unpublished scientific results.
Reviews & Minireviews integrating, synthesizing, summarizing knowledge from multiple sources.
Rapid Communications conveying research results of a particularly timely nature.
White Papers providing authoritative reports of formal governmental or professional panels.
Editorials expressing informed opinion on current topic or event of significance and relevance.
Letters to the Editor highlighting new, overlooked, critical or timely information or observation.
Perspectives reporting on the status or direction of an industry, knowledge ecosystem or theme.
Meeting Reports summarizing key takeaways from major professional meetings or transactions.
Updates bringing news of recent regulatory, clinical, technical, or professional developments.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLES contain innovative, hypothesis-driven research or purpose-driven clinical trial that is supported by sound experimental design, methodology, and data interpretation. May include supplementary materials as text, tables, figures, audio or video formats. Original research manuscripts may be of any length necessary to report the work, but authors are encouraged to be succinct and focused.
REVIEWS, usually by invitation and organized into themes, report on recent advances in pharmacotherapy and pharmaceutical research. Authors wishing to write a review are encouraged to first discuss their idea and plan with the editor-in-chief prior to writing/submitting. Reviews may be of any length as agreed to between the author/s and the editor.
MINI-REVIEWS discuss a more narrowly focused topic of recent research. Unsolicited reviews are considered only if they are authored by investigators who have demonstrated expertise in the relevant areas. May include supplementary materials. Minireviews are limited to 5-10 printed pages.
RAPID COMMUNICATIONS provide opportunity for reporting of fast-breaking research results. The justification for rapid communication should be stated in the cover letter during submission. A Rapid Communication should be short and focused (no more than five printed pages).
WHITE PAPERS are authoritative articles that have been coauthored by a panel of experts who are associated with a governmental or professional organization, or their affiliated groups such as a programming committee for a workshop/symposium, a focus group, a section or interest group, or an ad hoc group formed to examine a particular topic or issue in the pharmaceutical professions. A White Paper should include evaluation of state-of-the-art subject matter and make consensus policy recommendations for future consideration to the relevant scientific community. The authorship should ideally be composed of the essential stake holders pertaining to the issue at hand, including representatives from academia, industry, and government as appropriate. To ensure proper alignment of content and style, prospective authors must first discuss their plans with the AJPPS Editor-in-Chief.
EDITORIALS OR COMMENTARIES are usually published by the editors or by invitation only. These articles contain topical issues of public and scientific interest.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR includes publishable communications to the Editor, and should preferably be based on, or react to, material previously published by AJPPS, published elsewhere, publicly reported in the news media, or otherwise disseminated in a traceable and accessible manner.
PERSPECTIVES are opinion articles representing the author’s evidence-based, logically organized, analysis or viewpoint on a subject matter of interest to the journal readership. Ideally, a perspective article should project the status or direction of an industry, knowledge ecosystem, theme or event, and should be provoked by publicly accessible news or premise.
MEETING REPORTS provide readers with summaries of such meetings, including consensus views. When a meeting report purports to be a Consensus Report or White Paper, authors should review and adhere to the “AJPPS Guideline for Review of Opinions and Summary Reports.” For more information on this procedure, please contact info@ajpps.org.
UPDATES shall identify the theme or sector of focus, for example Regulatory Update, Scientific Update, Technical Update, Public Health Updates, etc. Updates present information normally more limited in scope that is nevertheless of high quality, general interest, and sufficient importance to warrant publication for documented dissemination.
CASE REPORTS provide a detailed report of symptomology, diagnosis, and therapeutic management of an individual patient or a few patients emanating from clinical care rather than designed study. Case reports usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence and as such, remain one of the cornerstones of medical and pharmaceutical progress and provide many new ideas in patient care and biomedical research. Some reports contain an extensive review of the relevant literature on the topic. The case report is a rapid short communication and will be reviewed and published as such.

REPORTING GUIDELINES

Reports of randomized clinical trials should present information on all major study elements, including the protocol, assignment of interventions (methods of randomization, concealment of allocation to treatment groups), and the method of masking (blinding), based on the CONSORT Statement.
Reporting Guidelines for Specific manuscript types are given below. A statement of compliance with the appropriate guideline must be included on the title page of the manuscript.

Guideline	Type of Study	Source
STROBE	Observational studies including cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies	https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists
CONSORT	Randomized controlled trials	http://www.consort-statement.org
SQUIRE	Quality improvement projects	http://squire-statement.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=471
PRISMA	Systematic reviews and meta-analyses	http://prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist.aspx
STARD	Studies of diagnostic accuracy	https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2015151516
CARE	Case Reports	https://www.care-statement.org/checklist
AGREE	Clinical Practice Guidelines	https://www.agreetrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AGREE-Reporting-Checklist-2016.pdf
SPIRIT	Protocol Reporting	https://spirit-statement.org/title/
COREQ	Qualitative Studies	https://cdn.elsevier.com/promis_misc/ISSM_COREQ_Checklist.pdf

The reporting guidelines for other types of studies can be found at https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/.

THE EDITORIAL PROCESS

American Journal of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Sciences has a highly rigorous and unbiased double-blind peer-review process that makes sure that manuscripts are scientifically accurate, relevant, novel, and meaningful.

Decisions on accepting manuscripts for publication are solely based on the peer-review process, and the Editor’s discretion and the decision are final. The manuscript is sent for peer review to at least two external reviewers, and if required, it is sent to a third reviewer to act as a tie-breaker. A completed review by two reviewers recommending the acceptance of the manuscript for publication is mandatory.

In double-blind review process, the reviewers and authors are unaware of each other’s identity. The comments and suggestions (acceptance/rejection/amendments to the manuscript) received from reviewers are conveyed to the author anonymously. The author is requested to provide a point-by-point response to reviewers’ comments and submit a revised manuscript version. This process is repeated until reviewers and editors are satisfied with the manuscript.

Manuscripts accepted for publication are copy-edited for grammar, punctuation, print style, and format. Galley proofs are sent to the author. The author is expected to return the corrected proofs strictly within three days. It may not be possible to incorporate corrections received after that period. All the communication between the Journal and the author is completely online. To achieve faster and greater dissemination of knowledge and information, the journal publishes articles online immediately on final acceptance.

Manuscripts that do not conform to the Author Guidelines or exceed the Maximums set for Articles may be returned to the author for technical modification without review. Authors need to resubmit the manuscript after complying with the requirements.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

AJPPS uses EditorialAssist as its peer review tracking system. Manuscripts must be submitted online by the Corresponding Author at http://www.editorialassist.com/AJPPS /. You may be required to register as a new user with EditorialAssist upon your first visit. Login and registration procedures can be found on the website. EditorialAssist allows authors to track the progress of manuscript review in real time. Detailed, step-by-step instructions for submitting manuscripts can be found on the website. All correspondence regarding your manuscript should go through

EditorialAssist. Special Features, Appendices, and Supplementary Material can be accommodated and may contain highly interactive features or large databases. If in doubt contact the journal editor (editor@ajpps.org).

TERMS OF MANUSCRIPT CONSIDERATION

AJPPS ETHICS POLICY

AJPPS has developed an integrated ethics policy to guide decision-making across all submissions to the journal. The document is based on the recommendations on publication ethics policies for medical journals published by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Authors are required to review and adhere to the AJPPS Ethical Guidelines in full prior to submitting manuscripts to the Journal. Excerpts from the Policy are outlined below.

FULL DISCLOSURE

During the manuscript submission process, all authors will be required to confirm that the manuscript has not been previously published in any language anywhere and that it is not under simultaneous consideration by another journal. The policy regarding chemical compound disclosure centers on the data presented. If specific data relating to the study compound are reported, then the journal requires identification so that reviewers and readers can judge, based on general principles, whether the data are plausible and internally consistent, and to potentially allow future examination and/or validation of the results and conclusions reported. If, however, a library of compounds is used to generate correlations, such as in QSAR when the scope and diversity of the compounds are described, then it is possible that the specific chemical compositions of the compounds need not be identified, subject to the discretion of the reviewers and the editor.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Authors will be required to declare all known conflicts of interest (or their absence) during the submission of a manuscript. This conflict declaration includes conflicts or potential conflicts of all listed authors. Declared conflicts will be published in the paper. In cases of doubt, the circumstance should be disclosed so that the editors may assess its significance.

Conflicts may be financial, intellectual, commercial, political, or personal. Financial interests may include employment, research funding (received or pending), stock or share ownership, patents, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, nonfinancial support, or any fiduciary interest in a company.

http://www.wame.org/about/conflict-of-interest-in-peer-reviewed-medical

COPYRIGHT TRANSFER

The Copyright Revision Act of 1976 (US Public Law 94-533) requires that authors transfer their copyrights to the American Journal of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in order to provide for the widest possible dissemination of professional and scientific literature. A Transfer of Copyright form must be submitted online with the manuscript. The Transfer of Copyright form for an accepted manuscript must be on file with the AJPPS Editorial Office prior to production for publication. The corresponding authors must sign the form on behalf of all authors. Copyright and disclosure forms are available for download from the author’s panel and should be uploaded as PDF files.

ORIGINALITY OF MANUSCRIPTS

Authors of manuscripts submitted to the AJPPS are obliged to present accurate representation of the research performed along with an objective discussion of the significance of their findings. The author’s submission should be original work that reflects research undertaken with integrity and honesty, and it must conform to the ethical practices outlined in the AJPPS Ethical Guidelines . Authors should be willing to reply to any reasonable request from editors, reviewers, and scientists for materials, methods, or data necessary for verification of the conclusions reported in the paper.

USE OF COPYRIGHTED TABLES AND FIGURES

A copy of the granted permission to use copyrighted figures and tables must be included with the submitted manuscript.

PEER REVIEW

All submissions will be reviewed anonymously by at least two independent reviewers. Authors are encouraged to submit names and email addresses of expert reviewers, but selection remains a prerogative of the editors. Authors may include supplementary notes to facilitate the review process. If an accepted paper is cited that has not yet appeared in print and is required for evaluation of the submitted manuscript, authors should provide an electronic version for use by the reviewers. Authors are responsible for all statements in their work, including changes made by the copyeditor after a manuscript is accepted.

MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION

Several components of the manuscript should be submitted as individual files within Editorial Assist: cover letter, title page, manuscript body (including references list), individual figure and table files, and the Transfer of Copyright. Cover Letter A Cover Letter is recommended, but not required. Please note, a cover letter is required for a Rapid Communication. Authors who wish to submit names and email addresses of recommended reviewers for the peer review process may also indicate those in the Cover Letter. Title Page The title page must be submitted as a separate file, and should include the title of the article, author names with full first name (no degrees), each author’s affiliation, and a suggested running head (of 50 characters or less, including spaces). The affiliation should comprise the department, institution (usually university or company), city, and state (or nation) and should be typed as a footnote to the author’s name. For the corresponding author designated to correspond with the Editorial Office and review proofs, indicate his/her complete mailing address, office/cellular telephone number, and email address. Transfer of Copyright Form Copyright and disclosure forms are available for download from the author’s panel and should be uploaded as PDF files. Abstract The following article types require an abstract: Reviews, Minireviews, Original Research Articles, Rapid Communications, and Meeting Reports. The abstract is limited to a maximum of 250 words. For Research Articles, the abstract should include a brief (2 to 3 sentences) statement for each of the following sections written in paragraph form (without section title): Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, and Conclusion. Abstracts must be written in one paragraph, with no subheadings, equations, tables, reference citations, or graphics. Graphical abstracts will not be accepted at this time. Keywords Provide a list of no more than 5 key words. Introduction Required for Reviews, Mini Reviews, Original Research Articles, and Meeting Reports. Main Text For ease of referencing during review, include continuous line numbers in the manuscript body text. The line numbers will be removed prior to publication. For Original Research Articles and Rapid Communications, organize the main text as follows: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Combining Results and Discussion is discouraged. Primary, Secondary, and Third level headings should be clearly defined and numbered. The use of un-numbered subheadings to divide the text is encouraged. Use abbreviations sparingly and define them at the first mention in the text. Define all abbreviations used in tables within the table footnotes. Use the metric system for all measurements. Express metric abbreviations in lowercase letters without periods (cm, mL, sec). Define all symbols used in equations and formulas. When symbols are used extensively, the authors may include a list of all symbols in a table. Numbers should be reported to reflect the precision of the instrumentation utilized. Calculated numbers, such as means and standard deviations, should be expressed to no more than one significant digit beyond the precision of the instrument. Normally, numerical data reported to more than 3 significant figures should be justified. The precision of the variability (e.g., standard deviation) should not exceed that of the reported mean value. Conclusion The conclusion should be a brief paragraph, containing 3 to 4 sentences, that summarizes the findings presented. Acknowledgments Include funding source(s) and other contributions of significance. If the work has been funded wholly or in part by the US National Institutes of Health, please provide name(s) of funding institute(s) and grant number(s). This information is required for automatic deposit into PUBMED Central by the Publisher. References Authors are encouraged to use a citation management application (such as Endnote, Refworks or Zotero) to organize and generate the list of references cited in a manuscript. The reference style used by AJPPS is similar to the Style of the American Medical Association 11th Edition (AMA 11e) or newer, which is used by dozens of medical journals. Until AJPPS is listed among journal styles included in bibliographic management software suits, authors may use the AMA 11e Style (computer apps for generating references in AMA Style are also available for free on the web). The AMA 11e Style defines formats for in-text citations and reference list elements for various reference types. Following are complementary highlights and comments. References to unpublished peer-reviewed, personal communications, including conference abstracts, and papers in preparation or in review, cannot be listed, but can be notated parenthetically in the text. References downloaded from bibliographic databases are automatically abbreviated based on chosen format. Should you need to enter references manually, however, please ensure that abbreviations for journal names conform to the abbreviations used in Medline/Pubmed databases. The following are a few examples of the style and punctuation of references according to the AMA 11e Style:

Single author print citation: Smith JJ. The world of science. Am J Sci. 1999;36:234-238.

Multiple author print and online: Mahony S, Rose SL, Chilvers AJ, et al. Finding an optimal method for imaging lymphatic vessels of the upper limb. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2004;31:555-563. doi:10.1007/s00259- 003-1399-3.

Two-author online-only journal, no pagination: Slifka MK, Whitton JL. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. Dig J Mol Med. 2000. doi:10.1007/s801090000086.

Book chapter: Wyllie AH, Kerr JFR, Currie AR. Cell death: the significance of apoptosis. In: Bourne GH, Danielli JF, Jeon KW, eds. International review of cytology. London: Academic Press; 1980. p251-306.

Whole Book: Blenkinsopp A, Paxton P. Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the management of common illness. 3rd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Science 1998.

Online document: Doe J. Title of subordinate document. In: The dictionary of substances and their effects. Royal Society of Chemistry. 1999. http://www.rsc.org/dose/title of subordinate document. Accessed 15 Jan 1999.

Online database: Healthwise Knowledgebase. US Pharmacopeia, Rockville. 1998. http://www.healthwise.org. Accessed 21 Sept 1998.

For a general discussion with examples of formatting references for authors of Medline/Pubmed articles, please access http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html. Tables Tables must be created in Microsoft Word table format. Tables should be numbered (with Roman numerals) and referred to by number in the text. Center the title above the table and type explanatory footnotes (indicated by superscript lowercase letters) below the table. Data must be placed in separate cells of the table to prevent text and numbers from shifting when the table is converted for publication online. Empty cells may be inserted to create spacing. Tables should not duplicate information provided in the text. Instead, tables should be used to provide additional information that illustrates or expands on a specific point the author wishes to make. Each table should be self-explanatory. Figures AJPPS offers authors the use of color figures in online published manuscripts free of charge. Figures (as well as photographs, drawings, diagrams, and charts) are to be numbered in one consecutive series of Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text. The captions for illustrations and figures should be separated from the text and collated in a separate section called Figure Legends during submission. All electronic artworks must be submitted online via our online peer review tracking system, EditorialAssist. Figure files should be submitted in TIF, PSD or EPS format (≥ 600 dpi for line drawings and ≥300 dpi for half-tones and gray-scale art); however, JPG, PDF, and BMP files may also be submitted as long as the dpi specifications above are met. Use of a professional graphics program such as Adobe Photoshop to edit and/or save photographs and graphics is highly recommended. Supplemental Material Authors who wish to publish electronic supplementary material to their article (Excel files, images, audio/video files) must submit the supplementary files/materials with their manuscript submission via EditorialAssist. These files may be submitted as one file or multiple files as desired by the authors. Accepted formats for these files include .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .jpeg, .pdf, and for videos, mpeg-3 format. Note that supplementary files are not automatically shared with the reviewer. Therefore, please note in a cover letter if these materials should be evaluated by reviewers only, or if the supplemental files should be included for review and be published with the article should the manuscript be accepted. If the supplemental files are intended for publication, callouts using Supplemental 1, Supplemental 2, etc. should be placed in the appropriate location within the text of the manuscript body. If a desired technical feature is not covered in the Author’s Instructions, please contact the AJPPS Editorial Office (editors@ajpps.org) for assistance. All supplemental material must be created by the Author. Footnotes Footnotes should be avoided. When their use is absolutely necessary, footnotes should be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and should be typed at the bottom of the page to which they refer. Place a line above the footnote, so that it is set off from the text. Use the appropriate superscript numeral for citation in the text.

Publication/Processing Fee

The journal does not charge the authors or authors’ institutions for the submission, processing and/or publications of manuscripts

Copyright and Open Access Statement

Authors Retain Copyright

All of the content published in the American Journal of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is protected under the International copyright law, defined by Creative Commons and International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The author of an article retains the academic copyright of the content and can self-archive the article. The journal retains the commercial rights of the published content and publisher executes the commercial rights on behalf of the journal. The journal also grants to all readers and users a free, irrevocable, global, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute and display the content publicly and to make and distribute derivative works in any digital medium for any reasonable and non-commercial purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the copyrights under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International Public License.

Open Access Publication and Creative Commons Licensing

American Journal of Pharmacotherapy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is an open-access journal, and manuscripts published are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License (CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0), which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Compliance with Funder-Mandated Open Access Policies

An author whose work is funded by an organization that mandates the use of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 License is able to meet that requirement through the available open-access license for approved funders.

Privacy Statement

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