Publication of scientific articles
NSC Nursing journal publishes original scientific articles, in both Italian and English, covering all aspects of nursing. Each article undergoes a peer-review process, i.e. a process of evaluation of the manuscript by one or more experts in the same field. All articles that pass the review phase will only be published after final approval. There is no charge to the authors for the publication and circulation of their articles.
From 2021, NSC Nursing publishes articles in English language only.
Ethical/legal considerations
The submitted manuscript must be an original contribution that has not been previously published (except as an abstract or preliminary report) or submitted for publication to another journal at the same time. Furthermore, in the event that an article is published in NSC Nursing, it may not be published elsewhere in a similar form, in any language, without the express consent of the Editor-in-chief. Although the Editorial Board and reviewers make every effort to ensure the validity of published manuscripts, the authors are held responsible for any behaviour that is ethically unsound, such as manipulation of data, plagiarism or duplication of results, and possible conflict of interest. For this reason, the corresponding author must, on behalf of all authors, sign the NSC Nursing cover letter, which must be submitted together with the manuscript in PDF format and which can be downloaded at the following link:
Patient consent and permission to publish
Studies involving experiments on human subjects require the approval of their local ethics committee as well as informed consent signed by the patients. In this case, the manuscript must include the protocol number of the study approval and explicit mention of the consent of the subjects involved in the study. An example, to be stated in the Materials and Methods section, is as follows:
“Informed consent was signed by all study participants. Anonymity was guaranteed for all participants. No financial incentives were offered for participation in the study. This study was approved by the Local Ethics Committee (protocol No. xxxxx of 5/10/2019)“.
In addition where there is an unavoidable risk of breach of privacy, for example in a clinical photograph or case details, the authors will need to obtain signed consent from patients or relatives. In such cases, authors will need to send the signed consent form to NSC Nursing prior to publication.
Plagiarism Policy
NSC Nursing does not accept manuscripts with plagiarised material. For the purposes of this policy, plagiarism is defined as the unauthorised use of previously published works including data, images and text, including material collected from websites.
The journal’s Editorial Board will assess the type of plagiarism committed by the authors. Action taken will be based on the severity of the attempted plagiarism but may include correction or withdrawal of the published article. NSC Nursing will not accept subsequent articles from authors who have engaged in serious plagiarism.
Peer review policy
Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent researchers in the relevant research area evaluate submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance so as to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published in our journal.
Guidelines for writing scientific studies
The NSC Nursing journal advocates the use of appropriate guidelines for writing scientific articles. In the following table, we have listed the different study types accepted by NSC Nursing with links to download the corresponding guidelines in Word or PDF format.
NSC Nursing also welcomes commentaries
Commentaries
Commentaries present an in-depth analysis of current issues or reflections on published articles. Commentaries should not exceed 1800 words in total. Only the following paragraphs are counted: Abstract and Keywords, Introduction, Discussion, Conflict of Interest Statement and Acknowledgements.
The title page (title, authors, affiliations, corresponding author), references, tables and captions are excluded from the wordcount.
In addition, this type of article should preferably have a short title, an abstract of 150 words or less, no more than 18 references and one or two figures or tables (including legends). The sections of an article commentary should be as follows:
- Title page (Title, Authors, Affiliations, Corresponding Author)
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Discussion
- Conflict of interest statement
- Acknowledgements
- References
Manuscript preparation
Manuscripts that do not adhere to the following guidelines will be returned to the corresponding author for technical review, before being sent to the reviewers. A sample template can be downloaded at the following link.
Title page
This page should include
1. the full title of the manuscript;
2. authors’ full names, professional qualification and affiliation (affiliation body);
3.name and address of the corresponding author, including telephone number and e-mail address.
Abstract
The abstract should not contain references or tables and should have a limited presence of abbreviations and/or acronyms. The abstract should not exceed 350 words. The abstract should be structured using the following sections: Introduction, Objective/Purpose, Method, Results and Conclusions.
Keywords
Keywords should be present after the abstract and chosen appropriately in accordance with the research presented. A maximum of 5 words are allowed.
Body Text
Each manuscript should be structured using the following main sections:
- Introduction,
- Aim/Scope,
- Materials and Methods (including the following sub-sections:
- Sampling and Eligibility (includes study period, type of study, sociodemographic characteristics of the sample, inclusion and exclusion criteria, local Ethics Committee approval, description of collection, storage and processing of patient data, description of any incentives, description regarding informed consent if this was obtained from patients, etc.),
- Instruments
- Statistical Analysis
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Limitations
- Statements
- References
Abbreviations should be described upon first mention in the text and in each table and figure. If a brand name is mentioned, the name and address of the manufacturer (city and state/country) should be provided.
Statements
- Local Ethics Committee approval: for studies requiring Local Ethics Committee approval, the authors should indicate the protocol number and the committee that approved the study. In the case of studies that do not require Local Ethics Committee approval, please use the statement: “No formal approval by the Local Ethics Committee was required for this study”.
- Conflicts of interest and sources of funding: the authors should disclose all possible conflicts of interest in the manuscript, including financial, consultancy, institutional and other relationships. If there is no conflict of interest, it must be explicitly declared. If there are conflicts of interest and/or sources of funding, including pharmaceutical and industrial support, the authors should report them both in the manuscript, in the appropriate paragraph: “Conflicts of interest and sources of funding” inserted after the conclusion, and in the cover letter.
- Author contributions:this section should indicate the contribution of each author who participated in the study.
- Acknowledgements:any acknowledgements for marginal or supporting contributions to the article should be indicated in this sub-section.
References
Only articles cited in the manuscript should be listed in the References section (max. 50 entries). The references should be compiled following the rules of the Vancouver Style: the list of references should be presented in the order in which the individual entries are cited in the text, with Arabic numbering using square brackets.
Example of in-text citation:
The authors discussed Osteoporosis in HIV-positive Young Italians and Migrants [1].
The references must be listed as follows in the References section:
1. Cascio, A., Colomba, C., Di Carlo, P., Serra, N., Lo Re, G., Gambino, A., et al., (2020). Low bone mineral density in HIV-positive young Italians and migrants. PloS one, 15(9), e0237984.
If there are more than 6 authors, only the first 6 should be cited by adding et al.
2. Wang X, Liu K, You LM, Xiang JG, Hu HG, Zhang LF, et al. The relationship between patient safety culture and adverse events: a questionnaire survey. Int J Nurs Stud. 2014;51(8):1114-22.
Citing style of a book or chapter
3. Gilstrap LC, Cunningham FG, Van Dorsten JP, editors. Operative obstetrics. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002.
4. Ford HL, Sclafani RA, Degregori J. Cell cycle regulatory cascades. In: Stein GS, Pardee AB, editors. Cell cycle and growth control: biomolecular regulation and cancer. 2nd ed. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley-Liss; 2004. p. 42-67.
Web references
5. Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC). Guideline for prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract infections 2009. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta. Available at:www.cdc.gov/hicpac/cauti/001_cauti.html. Last accessed: 19 December 2011.
Figures and tables
Figures and tables should be chosen for clarity and simplicity, numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals and accompanied by brief but comprehensive captions. Both figures and tables should be placed in the body of the text and numbered in the order of their appearance. Diagrams and illustrations should be submitted to the editorial board in a graphically accurate format that allows them to be reproduced without modification. Tables in image format will not be accepted, and the minimum resolution accepted for images is 300 dpi.
Dates and numbers
- For articles in English
Date: month/day/year.
For numbers: the comma indicates the thousands separator.
For numbers: the dot indicates the decimal point separator.
Finally, it is recommended that figures be rounded to one decimal place (both in the text and in the tables). - For articles in Italian:
Date: day/month/year
For numbers: the comma indicates the decimal point separator.
For numbers: the dot indicates the thousands separator.
(If there is no ambiguity between the thousands separator and the decimal point separator, the point will also be accepted as the decimal point separator).
Finally, it is recommended that figures be rounded to one decimal place (in both text and tables).
Foreign words
Foreign words should always be indicated in italics, especially if they have not yet entered into common use in the Italian language. If you decide to use a foreign term, you should never use a declension of it (e.g. “i computer” and not “i computers“). An Italian translation of the term used in English is always welcome.
File format
The following word processor file formats will be accepted for the manuscript:
Microsoft word (DOC, DOCX)
Rich text format (RTF)
Terms and conditions for submitting articles
Articles submitted for publication in the NSC Nursing Journal should be submitted via submission form
https://www.nscnursing.it/submit-manuscript/
Review process
All manuscripts that meet the editorial guidelines are assigned two or more reviewers, who evaluate the methodological quality of the work and any proposed changes to be made by the authors. In the evaluation step, reviewers will consider the adherence to editorial standards and the methodological quality of the manuscript.
All associate editors except the Editor-in-Chief may be involved as reviewers in the evaluation of a manuscript.
Additionally, for each manuscript with statistical analyses, a biostatistician is included as a reviewer.
The journal review process is single-blind, i.e. a peer review process where the authors do not know who the reviewers are, while the reviewers know who the authors.
Based on the reviewers’ feedback, the Editor-in-Chief will decide whether the work can be accepted, be considered acceptable after revisions and modifications (giving reasons) or be rejected (giving reasons). The reviewers’ assessment will be communicated within 15-30 days to the address provided by the author in the submission phase. The manuscript, if accepted, will be published online on the NSC Nursing website, within 30 working days.
Translation service
The Editorial Committee has decided that starting from 2022 NSC Nursing will provide the opportunity to all Italian authors who explicitly request it to provide the translation service into English for free. The company that will translate the articles will be Translated. The translation service will be provided only for articles that are accepted for publication. This decision was made with the intention of promoting nursing research in Italy, through greater dissemination of the articles that will be published in our scientific journal.