Western Journal of Nursing Research

Please read the guidelines below then visit the Western Journal of Nursing Research (WJNR)’s submission site to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Sage Publishing disseminates high-quality research and engaged scholarship globally, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion in publishing. We encourage submissions from a diverse range of authors from across all countries and backgrounds.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of WJNR will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available — see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyrighted works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal, and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that WJNR may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy. If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

1. What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Manuscript requirements
1.4 Writing your paper

2. Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
2.7 Clinical trials
2.8 Reporting guidelines
2.9 Research Data

3. Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving

4. Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplemental material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services

5. Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions

6. On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article

7. Further information
7.1 Appealing the publication decision

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to WJNR, please ensure you have read the journal’s Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article types

• Original research (quantitative, intervention, qualitative, mixed methods)
• Pilot studies testing interventions
• Reviews of empirical studies (scoping reviews, integrative reviews, and systematic reviews with or without meta-analyses)
• Methodological research
• Editorials (we do not typically publish unsolicited editorials. Please contact the Editor prior to submitting an editorial)
• Letters to the editor

1.3 Manuscript requirements

• Title page which must include:
  • A descriptive manuscript title, preferably of no more than 12 words
  • Author names, credentials, titles, and affiliations
  • Corresponding author’s name and complete address including email and phone number
  • Statements: any acknowledgements, funding statements, conflict of interest statements, etc.
  • Include a 140-character or less summary of the key takeaway of your manuscript so that if your manuscript is accepted we can promote it on social media when it is published. Please also list any author or institutional social media accounts or hashtags you would like included in WJNR's social media postings to help with disseminating your work.
• The title page must be uploaded as a separate file to enable blinded manuscript review.
• Number all pages, beginning with abstract page and including references, tables, and figures. Research reports may be 4500 words (title page, abstract, references, tables, and figures do not count towards total).
• Do not use bold or italics in the manuscript for text other than headings and subheadings. Use of italics should be consistent with AMA Manual of Style, 11th edition.
• Use one-inch margins and 12-point typeface.
• Double space the entire document including tables and references. Do not include line numbers.
• Use three or fewer abbreviations in the manuscript text (other than common statistical abbreviations). Additional abbreviations may be necessary in some complex tables.
• Prepare a blinded manuscript file that does not contain any author information. Do not include a title page in this file. When blinding your own and co-authors' references, replace the citations and author list with “Authors,” but retain the rest of the reference entry for reviewers.

• Abstract: Include a structured abstract without citations as the first page of the manuscript file in addition to filling in the required abstract text box on the online system.
  • Abstracts should focus on methods and results, with much less space devoted to background and discussion.
  • Limit the abstract to 250 words.
  • For most research articles, abstracts will use the following headings:
    • Background
    • Objective
    • Methods
    • Results
    • Conclusions
  • Do not use abbreviations in abstracts.
  • Any trial or review registration information (e.g. clinicaltrials.gov registration number, PROSPERO registration number, etc.) should be reported at the end of the abstract.
  • Include four to five keywords below your abstract for indexing. Use MeSH terms if possible.
     
• Manuscript: The body of the manuscript should start on a new page (separate from the abstract and keywords).
  • Manuscripts should be limited to 4500 words (not including the title page, abstract, references, tables, and figures), and prepared following the AMA Manual of Style.
  • Manuscripts should be double-spaced, with 1-inch margins throughout.
  • The first line of paragraphs should be indented.
  • The organization for research reports is as follows:
    • Introduction: Do not use a heading. No more than one paragraph about the study topic.
    • Statement of the Problem: Use a substantive, descriptive heading which describes the topic; do not use “Literature Review” or “Statement of the Problem” as the heading. Include rationale for the study, any conceptual framework, and literature review.
    • Purpose: Most manuscripts would benefit from this heading. State specific research questions or hypotheses which name all variables in the study.
    • Methods: Specify design, participants/sampling, data collection/measures, interventions, procedures, and/or analysis plans as relevant.
      • Please use the relevant reporting guidelines for your research method. Major reporting guidelines may be found on the EQUATOR network webpage.
        • Use PRISMA or a PRISMA extension (e.g., PRISMA-ScR) for literature reviews
        • Please use the CONSORT guidelines when reporting intervention manuscripts. Provide extensive details regarding any interventions (see Conn, WJNR 34, 427-433 for intervention details to report), and use the GUIDED statement and/or TIDieR checklist, as appropriate.
        • For qualitative manuscripts, please review the COREQ and SRQR guidelines for standards for reporting qualitative research to ensure your manuscript contains all recommended elements to meet reporting quality.
        • The STROBE guidelines should be followed for standards for reporting quantitative descriptive research.
      • 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. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.
      • For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.
    • Results: Describe sample attributes, then present results by research questions or hypotheses. When statistical tests are performed, provide test statistics and confidence intervals and/or exact p values. Report means and measures of variability for important variables. Report numbers of subjects included in analyses, if this varies.
      • When reporting results, please avoid reporting only that something was statistically significant, and just the p-value. Current reporting standards are that any time a p-value is reported, there should also be something to show the magnitude of the difference (e.g., an effect size, the means beging compared, the statistical test value [t-test, F-test, etc.]).
    • Discussion: The last heading. Use minimal subheadings in this section. The section should include findings interpreted in the context of other research, conceptual frameworks, or design. Do not simply re-state results. The discussion section should include a discussion of the limitations of your research or review.
    • References: Start the reference list on a new page. Use the most recent AMA Manual of Style for citations and reference lists. References for research reports are generally limited to 30 citations; reviews may include more citations.
      • DOI numbers should be included for all references where a DOI number is available.
      • Authors should verify that no retracted literature has been included as part of the evidence base in the manuscript.
    • Include any acknowledgement and funding statements on the title page file, not the manuscript file. Do not state authors’ names in acknowledgements. Limit to major contributions, following the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (icmje.org). Be brief.
• Review papers should address health problems or nursing practice issues with high significance for many patients or nurses. Reviews should synthesize previous findings as well as suggest future research and practice. Review articles should be organized in a manner consistent with the content area and have appropriate headings and subheadings. The extent of previous research determines the number of references and tables. Authors are encouraged to use relevant reporting guidelines for reviews to guide the structure and elements included in their review manuscript (e.g., PRISMA, PRISMA-ScR, etc.)
   
• Tables and Figures are encouraged when they convey information not presented in the text. Tables and figures should display unique information; do not report the same information in figures and tables. Figures are optional, must be camera-ready, and black and white; WJNR does not publish color figures. No more than one figure per page. Each table or figure should start on a new page. Group tables and figures at the end of the manuscript file or in a separate file. Avoid tables longer than one page. Research reports should contain no more than 3 tables or figures total, but exceptions are possible. Review articles may contain additional tables.
  • Follow AMA guidelines for tables. New authors should work with experienced authors or statisticians to construct tables.
  • Tables must have labels which indicate the kind of data and units of measure in that column or row (e.g., means(SD), n(%), r(p)).
  • Do not create small tables with few rows and columns, these data may be better presented in the text.
  • Tables should always contain information about the number of subjects in the analyses. If all subjects are included in all cells, this may be designated parenthetically at the end of the title such as (N = 451) otherwise designate sample sizes in column/row headings or in a footnote.
  • In tables and text, upper case ‘N’ designates the entire sample. Lower case ‘n’ denotes a subsample.
  • Report exact p values (instead of p less than values) whenever possible in tables and text.
  • Limit information in tables to essential content. Tables over two manuscript pages in length should be rare.
  • Each table and figure must be mentioned in the text. Tables and figures must be numbered in the order in which they are introduced in the text.

1.4 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

WJNR asks authors to use person-first language wherever possible to avoid defining people by their health conditions or survivors by their experiences. Similarly, authors should follow the established guidance for reporting race and ethnicity as well as sex, gender, and sexual orientation (see section 11.12 in the AMA Manual of Style, 11th edition).

1.4.1 Make your article discoverable
For information and guidance on how to make your article more discoverable, visit our Gateway page on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. 
Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors
•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper
•  The author has recommended the reviewer
•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution).

WJNR is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for the journal can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor/Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

2.2 Authorship
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.

The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

1. Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
2. Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
3. Approved the version to be published,
4. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.3.1 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

2.4 Funding
WJNR requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of WJNR to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here

2.6 Research ethics and patient consent
Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and 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. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative. Please do not submit the patient’s actual written informed consent with your article, as this in itself breaches the patient’s confidentiality. The Journal requests that you confirm to us, in writing, that you have obtained written informed consent but the written consent itself should be held by the authors/investigators themselves, for example in a patient’s hospital record. The confirmatory letter may be uploaded with your submission as a separate file.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The journal has adopted the Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare for Veterinary Journals published by the International Association of Veterinary Editors.

2.7 Clinical trials
WJNR conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

2.8 Reporting guidelines
The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives

2.9. Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

• share your research data in a relevant public data repository
• include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
• cite this data in your research

3. Publishing policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway

3.1.1 Plagiarism
WJNR and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement      
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway

3.3 Open access and author archiving
WJNR offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway. Manuscripts submitted as pdf files will be returned to the author. If you have used reference management software, please remove field codes from the manuscript files before uploading files to the submission site.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines  

Figures for WJNR must be supplied in black and white.

4.3 Supplemental material
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc.) alongside the full-text of the article. These materials should be referred to as “Online Resource” and numbered sequentially in the text. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplemental files.

Note that files will be uploaded as supplied. They will not be checked for accuracy, copyedited, typeset or proofread.

4.4 Reference style

WJNR adheres to the AMA reference style. View the AMA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

5. Submitting your manuscript

WJNR is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wjnr to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

5.1 ORCID
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.3 Permissions
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway

6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. 

6.2 Online First publication
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the WJNR editorial office as follows:

wjnr@rush.edu

7.1 Appealing the publication decision
Editors have very broad discretion in determining whether an article is an appropriate fit for their journal. Many manuscripts are declined with a very general statement of the rejection decision. These decisions are not eligible for formal appeal unless the author believes the decision to reject the manuscript was based on an error in the review of the article, in which case the author may appeal the decision by providing the Editor with a detailed written description of the error they believe occurred.

If an author believes the decision regarding their manuscript was affected by a publication ethics breach, the author may contact the publisher with a detailed written description of their concern, and information supporting the concern, at publication_ethics@sagepub.com