Instructions to authors

Table of Contents

• 1. Purpose and Scope of the Journal
• 2. General Information
• 3. Ethical Considerations
• 4 Types and Writing of Manuscripts
• 5. Manuscript Submission and Author Checklist
• 6. Paper Review and Adoption
• 7. Miscellaneous

1. Purpose and Scope of the Journal

• 1) The purpose of the Journal of Korean Maternal and Child Health is to publish research papers in the field of health care for children and adolescents, women of childbearing age, and pregnant women to provide the latest information to maternal and child health researchers, policy makers, and public health experts in Korea and to contribute to improving maternal and child health.

2. General Information

• 1) First published in 1997, the Journal of Korean Maternal and Child Health is the official journal of the Korean Society of Maternal and Child Health.
• 2) It is published four times a year, with No. 1 published on January 31, No. 2 published on April 30, No. 3 published on July 31, and No. 4 published on October 31.
• 3) The name of the official journal is the Journal of Korean Maternal and Child Health, and the official abbreviation of the journal is J Korean Matern Child Health.
• The predecessor of this journal is the Journal of the Korean Society of Maternal and Child Health(한국모자보건학회지), which has been published from 1997 (Vol. 1, No. 1) to 2024 (Vol. 28, No. 1) (ISSN 1226-4562, eISSN 2384-440X), and its abbreviation is J Korean Soc Matern Child Health.
• 5) This journal is listed in databases such as KoreaMed, KoMCI, KoreaMed Synapse, Korea Citation Index of the National Research Foundation of Korea, ENEST, and Google Scholar.
• 6) The address of the official website of this society is http://www.ksmch.or.kr, and the journal is an open access magazine that can be accessed for free through the scholarly journal website https://www.e-mch.org.
• 7) The submission site is https://submit.e-mch.org.

3. Ethical Considerations

1) Research ethics and publication ethics
All manuscripts must be written in compliance with the regulations on research and publication ethics of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ( ICMJE, http://www.icmje.org), Council of Science Editors (https:// www.councilscienceeditors.org/), World Association of Medical Ediꠓtors (WAME, http://www.wame.org/), Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (https://www.kamje.or.kr/). If matters suspected of research and publication misconduct, such as duplicate publication, plagiarism, fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed conflicts of interest, ethical issues found in submitted manuscripts, authors' ideas or data, complaints to editors, and other issues are found, the scholarly journal should be handled in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, http://publicationethics.org/). The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for investigating any allegations of misconduct and determining whether corrective action is required. The ethics committee of the journal should discuss questionable issues, makes decisions, and post errata, corrigenda, explanations, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Research ethics and publication ethics: For the research ethics of this journal, the Guidelines for Research and Publication Ethics (http://kamje.or.kr/publishing_ethics.html) published by the Editors’ Association of Korean Medical Journal are applied mutatis mutandis, and all contributors must comply with the journal's ethics regulations.

2) Author
The person listed in the manuscript as the author of the paper must be qualified as an author, and each author must have fully participated in the research to be able to take public responsibility for the content of the research. Authors are divided into the first author, corresponding author, and co-author. The first author is the person who contributed the most to the writing of the paper, while the corresponding author is primarily responsible for contact with the editorial committee and readers.
Authorship is based on agreement to take joint responsibility for all aspects of the research to ensure: 1) Contribution to establishing the basic concept of the research, design of the research, analysis and interpretation of data, 2) Significant contribution to drafting or changing or improving important parts of the intellectual content, 3) Agreeing to the entire contents of the final manuscript, 4) The fact that issues related to the accuracy or truthfulness of the research have been properly investigated and resolved. All authors must meet the criteria for 1), 2), 3), and 4) to qualify as authors, and anyone who does not meet all four criteria should be considered a contributor, not an author. Contributors to the research may be mentioned in the acknowledgments. In the case of an abbreviated version or part of the thesis, this fact must be clearly stated, and the first author must be the recipient of the degree.

3) Duplicate and unauthorized publication
Manuscripts with the same content that have already been published in other scholarly journals or other periodicals should not be submitted, and manuscripts that have been published or are being submitted to this journal should not arbitrarily published in other journals.

4) Protection of human rights of subjects
The subject's secrets must be kept confidential. Names, medical records numbers, and exact dates should not be described, and care must be taken to ensure that the subject's personal information is not exposed.

5) Conflict of interest
The corresponding author of the paper must compile and disclose all authors' conflicts of interest that may affect the interpretation of the data. Conflicts of interest include employment, funding, stock options, royalties, patents, as well as financial support, personal relationships with pharmaceutical companies, and potential pressure from interest groups.

6) Consideration for sex/gender
In cell experiments, animal experiments, or clinical research (all kinds of research involving humans), biological sex or socio-cultural gender should be recognized as a factor that may affect the results, and the following information must be included in the paper:

① Cell or animal testing research
(1) Describe the source, certification, and biological characteristics of the cell line or animal.
(2) Study the target cells or animals by including both sexes equally and describe the results due to gender differences.
(3) When studying only with a single gender, provide reasonable evidence.
② Clinical research
(1) Correctly describe sex and gender separately.
(2) Include male and female as the research subjects, and comparatively analyze the results and publish them in a paper.
(3) In case of research targeting a single gender, provide academically reasonable evidence.

4. Types and Writing of Manuscripts

4-1 Types of manuscripts

This journal must have original manuscripts related to maternal and child health, and the types of manuscripts include original articles, reviews, case reports, editorials, short communications, and letters to the editor.

• 1) Original article: Must report the results of clinical and experimental research, present new information, and use appropriate statistical techniques.
• 2) Review: A review, an analysis focusing on a specific title, should be commissioned and published by the editorial committee. Upon submission, even the unsolicited papers may also be considered by the editorial committee.
• 3) Case report: Clinical and educational findings that may have a significant impact on the field of maternal and child health must be included, and the author must write the paper in English.
• 4) Editorial: Covers urgent topics related to maternal and child health, reports and changes related to scholarly journals, communication with external experts, etc. The editorial committee may suggest a topic, and the author must write the paper in English.
• 5) Short communication: Includes important or new information related to maternal and child health that needs to be conveyed quickly.
• 6) Letter to the editor: Articles can be submitted in the form of opinions and questions about papers published in scholarly journals, and the author must write the paper in English.

4-2 Writing manuscript

The submission regulations of this journal are based on the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical journals from International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME, http://www.icjme.org), and matters not specified below should be in accordance with the general principles of the above format.

1) General
(1) Author's qualifications
The qualifications for submission to this journal are limited to members of the society (including papers co-authored by members and non-members), and even non-members can submit and publish as authors of solicited manuscripts. All authors must contribute to the writing of the paper, and research misconduct by specially related co-authors is prohibited. Specially related persons refer to minors under the age of 19 or family members (spouse, children, etc., within the first cousin). To request addition or deletion of an author after submission, the corresponding author must submit written consent and reasons from all co-authors, and the editor-in-chief must evaluate and make a decision. This journal is not responsible for changes in authors.

(2) Manuscript for review
In principle, manuscripts should be written in Korean and English. However, case reports, editorials, letters to the editor, etc. must be written in English. For academic terms in Korean manuscripts, the medical glossary published by the Korean Medical Association must be applied mutatis mutandis. The manuscript for review should be written in MS word on A4 paper size, and the pages should be marked. The font size should be 10 points, the line spacing 200%, and the margins at least 30 mm on the top, bottom, left and right. The original file must be composed and submitted in the order of Korean title, English title, English abstract, text, references, tables and figures (author information not included), while the copyright transfer agreement (signature of all authors required) and title page must be submitted as attached files. The title page contains 1) Korean title, author's name and affiliation, 2) English title, full name, author's name and affiliation in English, 3) sponsoring organization and sponsor such as research funding, 4) corresponding author's name and contact information (including address, email, phone number, and fax number)

(3) Manuscript for final publication
The final revised manuscript of the paper selected for publication after completion of the review must be written including the author information, written in the same format with reference to the previously published paper, edited in English by an expert, and then submitted to the journal's online paper submission system website (https://submit.e-mch.org).

2) Manuscript form
Manuscripts should be written in Korean and English. The writing order is as follows: cover (manuscript title, heading, all author names including degrees, ORCID ID of all authors), inside cover, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgment, Conflict of interest, References, Tables and Figures. When writing a manuscript, the abstract, references, tables and figures must be written in English, and the rest must be written on one side of A4 size paper using MS word.

(1) Cover
It must be written in a separate Word document file. The title page must include the manuscript title, heading, all author names including degrees, and the ORCID ID of all authors. The title of the paper and the names and affiliations of all authors should be written in Korean and English and written only in English for foreigners.

(2) Inside cover
To ensure fairness of expert review, only the title of the manuscript should be written in Korean and English on the inside cover. The author's name, affiliation, etc. should not be included at all.

(3) Abstract:
The abstract should be written within 250 English words. The abstract should be divided into sub-items and recorded in the format of Purpose, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. Below the abstract, the key words of the paper should be written within 6 words. In principle, the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) listed in Index Medicus should be used as keywords (see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh).

(4) Text
It should be written in the following order: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion.

• ① Terminology: Academic terms should be written in Korean as much as possible, and may be written in English only when translation is difficult.
• ② Abbreviations: Only standard abbreviations should be used. Abbreviations should not be used in the paper title and abstract. When using an abbreviation for the first time in the text, the formal title should be written first and then parentheses should be used to indicate the abbreviation, and only the abbreviation can be used thereafter. It is best not to use abbreviations not commonly used as much as possible, except for abbreviations for standard units of measurement.
• ③ Notation of proper nouns, numbers and measurements: The original language should be used for personal names, place names and other proper nouns, and Arabic numerals for numbers, and the metric system for weights and measures. Temperature should be recorded in Celsius and blood pressure in mmHg. The metric system of International System of Units (SI) should be used for hematological or clinical chemistry measurements. Measurement values and unit should be spaced.
• ④ Drug name: In principle, the generic name should be used rather than the product name. However, the product name may be used only when it is important for evaluation of results or follow-up research.
• ⑤ Item classification: The items of the text is divided into two categories as follows:
• 1) Korean letters should be divided into Arabic numerals.
  Example: 1, 2, 3, 1), 2), 3), (1),(2),(3), ①, ②, ③
• 2) English letters should be divided into Roman letters.
  Example: Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, a, b, c
• ⑥ Citation of references:
  If there are two authors of the cited literature, ‘and’ should be written between the author names. If there are more than three, ‘et al.’ should be written after the first author. If multiple documents are cited simultaneously, they should be written in order of publication year. If there are two or more publications by the same author in the same year, a, b, c, etc. should be added after the year. In the case of the author, the last name should be written.
  Example) Kim and Lee (1984)... , Kim et al. (1998a, 1998b)... ,
  Anderson and Lomas (1982)... , Bottom et al (1980)...
  Example) … was investigated (Bottoms et al., 1980; Kim & Lee, 1986;
  Bittler & Abrams, 1989; Kim et al., 1998a, 1998b).
  
• ⑦ Parenthesis: It should be placed right after Korean letters, and written with a space after English letters, symbols, and numbers.
  Example) 초고(草稿)를 작성(drafting), articles (original)
• (5) Acknowledgement
  Introduces people or organizations who contributed to the paper but not enough to be co-authors.
• (6) Conflict of interest
  Conflicts of interest should include detailed description of employment, funding, stock options, royalties, patents, etc., as well as financial support, personal relationships with pharmaceutical companies, and potential pressure from interest groups.
• (7) Funding
  Describes funds and financial support from institutions, pharmaceutical companies, etc.
• (8) References
  References should be listed as follows according to the system used by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (Samples of Formatted References for Authors of Journal Articles, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html), while matters not exemplified below should be based on Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical journals from International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJME, http://www.icjme.org). References should be listed in alphabetical order of foreigner's names and year order.
• Scholarly journal paper: If there are more than 6 authors, all 6 authors should be listed, and the rest should be written as et al. Internationally accepted abbreviations should be used for journal titles.
• (Domestic scholarly journal)
  Park SH, Lim DO. Secular tends of peterm birth rate in pimiparous women by matermal age: 1997-1999, 2011-2013 singleton birth certificated data of Korea. J Korean Soc Matern Child Health 2015;19:296-303.
• (Overseas scholarly journal)
  Mastroiacovo Pl. Survival of children with Down syndrome in Italy. Am J Med Genet 1992;15(1):208-12.
• Rose ME, Huerbin MB, Melick J, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Regulation of interstitial excitatory amino acid concentrations after cortical contusion injury. Brain Res. 2002;935(1-2):40-6.
• Vallancien G, Emberton M, Harving N, van Moorselaar RJ; Alf-One Study Group. Sexual dysfunction in 1,274 European men suffering from lower urinary tract symptoms. J Urol. 2003;169(6):2257-61.
• ② Separate volume
  Galina AM, Bouchard C. Growth, maturation, and physical activity. Human Kinetics Books, Champaign, Illinois, 1991;11-20.
• Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A, Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetic basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.
• ③ Paper presented at the conference: Author name. title, conference name, conference venue, date and month of presentation
  Harnden P, Joffe JK, Jones WG, editors. Germ cell tumours V. Proceedings of the 5th Germ Cell Tumour Conference; 2001 Sep 13-15; Leeds, UK. New York: Springer; 2002.
• ④ Dissertation: Author name, thesis title, region: Name of school graduated; Publication year
  Han YJ. Analysis on the risk factors of Korea’s stillbirth [dissertation]. Seoul (Korea): Yonsei University; 2003.
• ⑤ Electronic media data
  Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious diseases. Emerg Infect Dis 〔serial Online〕1995 Jan-Mar 〔cited 1996 Jun 5〕;1(1):〔24 screen〕. Available from: URL:http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/eid.htm
  
• Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [Internet]. 2002 Jun [cited 2002 Aug 12];102(6):[about 1 p.]. Available from: http://www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htmArticle
• (9) Tables, figures, photos, etc.
  Each table, figure, and photo should be numbered sequentially. Descriptions of tables, figures, and photos must be in English. The title of the table should be written at the top, while the titles of figures and photos should be written at the bottom (Table 1. ..., Fig. 1. ...). In addition, there should be no horizontal or vertical lines in the middle of the table. Figures should be submitted in TIFF, JPG (JPEG), or PDF file format, and the picture file should not exceed 10MB. Photos should be prepared in high resolution (300 dpi or higher), and the appropriate size is 8x8 cm.

3) Review format
In general, reviews are requested by the editorial committee, but unsolicited reviews may also be considered. First, authors must consult with the editor-in-chief to determine whether the article is suitable for review in this journal. Reviews must be reviewed by experts. Not only topics with scientific consensus but also controversial topics should be discussed in reviews. Reviews should be prepared in the following order: Korean title, English title, author, affiliation, abstract, introduction, text, conclusion, acknowledgment, conflict of interest, references, tables and figures. Reviews are confirmed for publication after expert review.

4) Case report format
In principle, no more than 3 cases should be reported in Korea and limited to explanations of simple clinical and laboratory findings. The review should focus on the characteristics of the case, and the length of the case manuscript should be limited to 150 words for the abstract, up to 1,500 words for the text, and 15 references. It is recommended that patient informed consent be obtained for all cases. Publication is confirmed after expert review.

5) Editorials format
Editorials are manuscripts of up to 2,500 characters, invited by the editorial committee, and cover urgent topics related to maternal and child health, reports and changes related to scholarly journals, communication with external experts, etc., and topics can be suggested by the editorial committee. References should be limited to 10 or less. Publication is confirmed after expert review.

6), Short communication format
Contains important or new information that needs to be conveyed quickly in a manuscript of 2,500 characters or less. If the research has not been completed, but an important new finding (“First” observation or new unique finding) that has not previously been published is derived during the research process and the author wants to quickly disclose the research findings, Or, if the research result is a hot topic of great interest related to this society and could have a significant impact on the medical community (ex. When a problem is solved using a previously unannounced method, but more research and time are needed to clearly explain the mechanism or principle) ; In other words, it refers to a paper that presents a topic/subject that induces additional research or discussion in the academic world. Publication is confirmed after expert review.

7) Letters to the editor format
This is a text in the form of an opinion or question about a paper published in a scholarly journal. It should be written in the order of title, author, affiliation, text, and references. References should be limited to 10, and the text to 1,000 characters.

5. Manuscript Submission and Author Checklist

• (1) Tips for manuscript submission: Manuscripts must be submitted according to the paper submission procedures on the Journal of Korean Maternal and Child Health’s Online Paper Submission System website, https://submit.e-mch.org.
• (2) The manuscript file must include a cover, an inside cover without author or affiliation, text files, tables, and figure descriptions. When submitting, the author must submit a copyright agreement and an author checklist, and the form can be downloaded from the submission site.

6. Paper Review and Adoption

• (1) Manuscript publication status and publication order
  All manuscripts are reviewed by at least two experts in the field and then decided for publication through review by the editorial committee. In principle, accepted manuscripts are published in the order of receipt of final manuscripts, but the order can be adjusted depending on the content of the paper. The details regarding the review process and publication of the paper should be in accordance with this journal's review regulations.
• (2) The results of the examination are as follows:
  - Approval for publication: The paper has passed the examination and can be published in its current state.
  - Re-examination after minor revision: Re-examination must be conducted after minor revision.
  - Re-examination after major revision: Re-examination must be conducted after major revision based on the reviewer's comments.
  - Cannot be published: The submitted paper cannot be published because it is not suitable for this journal. Papers that cannot be published cannot be resubmitted to this journal.
  - Before officially decided for publication, submitted manuscripts can be withdrawn at the request of the authors. However, if submission is withdrawn during review, re-submission is not permitted.
  
• (3) Role of the editorial committee
  All inquiries about manuscript sending and editing should be directed to the editorial committee, and when necessary, the wording and structure of the manuscript may be modified by resolution of the editorial committee to the extent of not affecting the original text. All manuscripts will not be returned after submission.
• (4) Costs related to paper publication
  Authors of papers that are confirmed to be published as submitted manuscripts rather than solicited manuscripts must pay a publication fee (KRW 30,000 per page).
• (5) Matters to indicate when publishing: When publishing, the following information must be stated at the bottom of the title page of the paper.
  Paper examination schedule: paper submission date, examination date, publication confirmation date
  Specify that it is an abridged version or part of the thesis: (Example) “This thesis is an abridged version (part) of the doctoral (master’s) thesis of ○○○ (advisor: ○○○).”
  

7. Miscellaneous

• (1) Copyright: The copyright for all manuscripts published in this journal belongs to the Korean Society of Maternal and Child Health.
• (2) Papers submitted by the editor-in-chief must be reviewed neutrally by reviewers from different institutions.
• (3) For inquiries about the journal, contact the office of the Journal of Korean Maternal and Child Health.
• Address: Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kangwon National University Hospital, 156 Baengnyeong-ro, Chuncheon-si, Gangwon-do (04619)
  Phone: 033-258-9183
  Fax: 033-258-9012
  E-mail: mojapub@hanmail.net
• (4) Matters of delegation: Any other matters not specified in these regulations should be in accordance with the decision of the Editorial Committee.

• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from January 17, 2001.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from August 1, 2004.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from November 1, 2006.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from August 1, 2008.
• (Supplementary Provisions) These regulations come into effect from August 1, 2012.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from January 1, 2015.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from February 1, 2016.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from July 1, 2016.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from September 1, 2017.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from March 1, 2018.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from January 1, 2019.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from March 1, 2019.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from March 1, 2020.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from December 5, 2022.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from March 1, 2023.
• (Supplementary Provision) These regulations come into effect from March 1, 2024.