Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered a good fit will be sent for peer review before a decision is made on acceptance or rejection.

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents, and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to being identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

An editor may desk reject a submission if it does not meet the minimum standards of quality. Before submitting, please ensure that the study design and research argument are properly structured and articulated. The title should be concise and the abstract should stand on its own. This will increase the likelihood of reviewers agreeing to review the paper. Once you're satisfied that your submission meets these standards, please follow the checklist below to prepare your submission.

Please include the following:

1. Cover letter addressing the editor, stating the manuscript type, significance, and fit with the journal scope.
2. Manuscript file (blinded for double-blind review: remove author names, affiliations, acknowledgements from the main text)
3. Title page (separate file) with all author details, affiliations, ORCID iDs, corresponding author contact, contributorship statement, conflicts, funding, ethics approval
4. Figures and tables (may be embedded in manuscript or submitted as separate high-resolution files)
5. Supplementary materials (if applicable): appendices, instruments, extended data, multimedia.
6. Reports for plagiarism and AI checks.

Language

• Full manuscripts must be in English.
• Clear, concise, grammatically correct academic English is expected.
• Authors for whom English is not a first language are encouraged to seek language editing services before submission.
• Optional abstracts in Hindi may be included in addition to the mandatory English abstract

Style and Formatting

• All submissions must follow APA 7th Edition style for formatting, in-text citations, and references
• Manuscripts should be submitted in Microsoft Word (.docx)
• Use 12-point Times New Roman or Arial font, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins
• Number all pages consecutively
• Number all lines for review purposes (in Word: Layout → Line Numbers → Continuous)

Title and Abstract

• Title: Clear, informative, concise (maximum 20 words). Avoid abbreviations, jargon, and questions
• Abstract: All submissions must include an abstract summarising the main points:
  Structured abstracts (for research articles, reviews, and brief communications): Include headings such as Background/Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusions
  Unstructured abstracts (for case reports, viewpoints, commentaries): Narrative format without headings
• Word limits: See section-specific limits

Keywords

• Provide 4-6 keywords below the abstract
• Use standard terminology (e.g., APA Thesaurus, MeSH terms)

Authorship and ORCID

• List all authors with full names, affiliations (department, institution, city, country), and email addresses
• Provide ORCID iDs for all authors (register for free at orcid.org)
• Authorship must meet ICMJE criteria:
• Substantial contributions to conception, design, data acquisition, analysis, or interpretation
• Drafting or critically revising the manuscript for important intellectual content
• Final approval of the version to be published
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work
• List contributors who do not meet authorship criteria in Acknowledgements

Contributor’s Statement

Include a brief statement describing each author's specific contributions (e.g., "AB and CD designed the study; AB collected data; CD and EF analysed data; AB drafted the manuscript; all authors reviewed and approved the final version")

Conflicts of Interest

All authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest (financial, personal, professional, or institutional relationships that could influence the work). If no conflicts exist, state: "The authors declare no conflicts of interest."

Funding Statement

• Acknowledge all sources of funding, grants, institutional support, or resources
• Include grant numbers and funding agency names
• If no funding was received, state: "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency."

Ethics Approval and Informed Consent

For research involving human participants, provide:

• Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) or Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval number and date
• Statement that informed consent was obtained from all participants
• For minors or vulnerable populations, state that parental/guardian consent and participant assent were obtained
• For case reports, state that written informed consent for publication was obtained
• For research not requiring ethics approval (e.g., secondary data analysis of publicly available data), provide justification

Data Availability Statement

• Authors must include a data availability statement indicating:
• Where data can be accessed (e.g., public repository with accession number)
• Data available on request from authors
• Data cannot be shared due to ethical/legal restrictions (provide justification)
• Anonymized mental health data should be deposited in appropriate repositories (e.g., Open
• Science Framework, Zenodo, institutional repositories) whenever ethically and legally feasible

Acknowledgements

• Acknowledge individuals who contributed but do not meet authorship criteria (e.g., data collectors, language editors, statistical consultants)
• Disclose use of AI tools (specify tool name and purpose)

Originality Report

All submissions must accompany an original report and an undertaking that the submission is not in the process of consideration by any other publication at the same time.

Similarity threshold: 15% or less (excluding references, standard method descriptions, and properly quoted material)

Any type of plagiarism is unacceptable, including but not limited to:

• Direct plagiarism: Copying text verbatim without quotation marks or attribution
• Mosaic plagiarism: Patchwork copying with minor modifications
• Self-plagiarism: Reusing substantial portions of one's own previously published work without disclosure
• Paraphrasing plagiarism: Inadequate paraphrasing without proper citation
• Idea plagiarism: Presenting others' ideas, hypotheses, or theories as one's own

Use of AI tools

Kindly note that the journal does not acknowledge AI-authorship and does not publish AI-generated text. Kindly submit an AI-check report, or the journal will do an AI-check for the authors before sending the articles for peer review.