Author Guidelines

Authorship

Authorship gives credit, assigns responsibility, and implies academic, social, and financial accountability for the published work. Those who substantially contributed to a paper are credited as authors, understand, and take on their roles and responsibilities, and are held accountable for published research.

The journal’s definition of authorship is based on the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Those who met all four criteria are identified as authors. In addition, responsibilities of co-authors for specific aspects of the work must be indicated. Please see the "Authorship information" section for details on how to indicate these responsibilities in the manuscript.

If the manuscript is authored by a large group or a consortium, all the members should meet all four authorship criteria. The corresponding author(s) must specify the group name and group members in line with the disclosure agreements.

For more information on how to acknowledge non-author contributors, equal contributors and corresponding author and other acknowledgements, please see the following sections and “Author Information” section.

Non-Author Contributions

Those who do not meet all the above-mentioned criteria are not qualified as authors, however, those who met at least one of the criteria should be acknowledged as non-author contributor and their contribution should be specified in the “Authors and Affiliations” section of the article. For more information on non-author contributions, please see: https://www.icmje.org. Non-author contributions include but are not limited to the administrative support, general supervision, acquisition of funding, technical editing, language editing and proofreading. Non-author contributions should be specified and indicated in the title page on submission.

Equal Contributions

Authorship status and authors who contributed to the work equally should be indicated when submitting and publishing multi-author articles. Accordingly, authorship status and equal contributions are defined as follows:

• Equal contribution: The authors contributed equally to the research.
• First authorship: The authors share first authorship.
• Equal contribution and first authorship: The authors contributed equally to the research and share first authorship.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the designated author handling all correspondence with the journal, from submission to publication processes, on behalf of the authors. The corresponding authors are responsible for complying with the journal's administrative requirements, providing the necessary information and documents, including authorship details, contact details, ethics committee approval, registration documents, and signing publication agreements.

Cover Letter

A cover letter is required for all submissions, regardless of the article type. The cover letter is important to help the Editor in their preliminary evaluation. The submitting author will be asked to write or paste their cover letter in a designated place in the online submission system (It will not be uploaded as a separate file). Here, please indicate why you think the paper is suitable for publication in the Turkish Journal of Family Practice. Statements that the manuscript has not been previously published, is not under consideration by another journal, and that all authors have approved the submission of this version of the manuscript and take full responsibility for the manuscript must be provided. If the work has been previously presented, or published as an abstract or pre-print, please indicate so in the cover letter and provide details on the title page (see below). If generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been used in any part of the production of the work, this should also be declared both in the cover letter and in the appropriate parts of the submitted files (see the related section below for details).

Article Types

The manuscripts submitted to the Turkish Journal of Family Practice should be original, that has not been published and not under review by any other publication.

Authors must select the article type for their manuscripts and must comply with the descriptions defined in the table below. For further details, they should review the section related to article types.

*Only for the main text; excluding title page, abstract, key words, tables, footnotes, figure captions and references.

Review

Review articles should contain an objective account of different points of view and an internationally representative bibliography. Authors considering to submit review articles are encouraged to consult with the Editor-in-Chief before submission. The general instructions regarding submission (including cover letter, title page requirements, journal style guidance, and conflict of interest statements etc.) also apply to review articles. Review submissions should include a Title Page, and a Main Document containing Abstract (unstructured 200-300 words for narrative reviews), Keywords (indexing terms, up to 6 items), Subject Headings, and References, Figures and Tables sections.

Research Article

Research articles should report scientific advancements in the field of family medicine and primary healthcare services, contributing to the increase of knowledge in this area. The articles should present original research aimed at improving family medicine practice in Turkey and globally, contributing to solutions that strengthen public health. Research articles must include the following sections: title, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion, and references. These articles should guide both clinical practice and academic research, and include innovative, evidence-based studies aimed at improving the quality of primary healthcare services and providing societal benefits. If the study requires ethics committee or institutional review board approval, this must be stated in the Materials and Methods section, but the name of the committee or board should be anonymized. If the study requires informed consent, the section should include a statement regarding whether informed consent was obtained (Please note that informed consent may not be required, or it may be waived by the ethics committee in certain types of studies).

Research article submissions should include a Title Page, and a Main Document. The Main Document should contain the Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and References, Figures and Tables sections.

Case Report

Case reports should present rare diseases or syndromes, new diagnostic tools or methods, new treatment approaches with practical application potential, and solutions to clinical issues encountered in primary healthcare settings. Case reports should be presented with an unstructured abstract (200-300 words). The main text must include the following sections: Introduction (a brief review of existing knowledge on the topic), Case Presentation (patient presentation, laboratory or other findings, diagnosis, and outcome), Discussion (how this case report contributes to a new understanding of the disease or its management, and its relation to previous work), followed by References, and Figures and Tables.

All case reports require informed consent for publication. This should be stated in the Case Presentation section. If the case report does not include any identifying information, and if it is deemed important for public health (or otherwise significant), it may be possible to publish without explicit consent, provided that obtaining consent is unusually difficult and a reasonable individual would not object to publication (all three conditions must be met).

The number of authors for case reports is limited to 6. If more than 6 individuals have made significant contributions to qualify as authors according to ICMJE recommendations, the authors may contact the editorial office to request an increase in the number of authors.

Letter to the Editor

The "Letter to the Editor" section can be written to address significant issues related to primary healthcare services and family medicine practice in Turkey. These letters may discuss current challenges in the field, new practice proposals, scientific advancements, or debates on ethics and policy. Letters should offer criticisms, ideas, or suggestions that contribute to the existing literature, and should not be written merely for approval or ratification. Constructive discussions that advance family medicine practice and societal health are encouraged.

Letters to the Editor regarding published articles should be about those published in the Turkish Journal of Family Practice in the last year. These letters should address concerns, reviews, criticisms, contributions, or new perspectives on published articles and should not solely be for endorsement or approval. Letters must be submitted with a unique title and full contact details of the author(s). References should be formatted according to the journal's style, with references to the published article(s). No abstract is required. The Editor may send these letters to the original authors for review and/or response. If a response is published, it will appear in the same issue as the Letter to the Editor.

Manuscript Formatting Guidelines

Manuscript Formatting Guidelines have been created to assist authors in meeting the structural requirements. Prior to submitting a manuscript to the journal, authors are strongly encouraged to carefully review the Manuscript Formatting Guidelines and refer to the most recent issue to acquaint themselves with the standard formatting.

Manuscripts should be submitted to the Journal's online submission system by the corresponding author.

The manuscripts should comply with the following format requirements.

All submissions should include following documents:

• Title Page: Title, short running title, author information (see below), name, address and telephone number of the corresponding author, word count, number of figures and tables, and the following statements: conflict of interest, ethics committee approval (if applicable), author contributions, acknowledgements (if applicable), funding, previous publication as abstract, preprint etc., if any.
• Blind Manuscript (Main Document, in Word format version 2003 or above). All author names and affiliations should be EXCLUDED. The names of the study center and ethics board should be CENSORED. It should include the abstract and key words (for article types requiring them), the main text (structured, depending on the article type, see the table above), references, tables and figures
• Figures (if applicable – should be both embedded in the Main Document, and also uploaded separately)
• Supplementary and ancillary material (if applicable)

Page Format

• A4 Portrait, Margins (Normal) (top, bottom, left, right 2,5 cm)
• Microsoft Office Word document or rich text format.
• Each section must start on a new page.
• Manuscripts should be numbered starting from the first page.
• Page numbers should be written in the lower right corner.
• All headings and titles should be written in bold.
• All the figures and tables should be embedded in the text. Each figure and table should be referred to in the text. (Please see “Tables and Figures”)

Font Family

Manuscripts should be typed using Times New Roman font 12 pt. and double spacing throughout the text (Also for abstracts, footnotes and references).

Author Information

Authors must be declared at the time of submission and in the publication. Authors are responsible for the correct declaration of their names. Exact and correct names of the authors should be given on the title page of the submission, listed together, and separated by comas.

The following information should be keyed to the authors’ names and placed on the footer of the title page for EACH AUTHOR:

• Full author names
• Affiliation given in the exact sequence below (in line with the availability). In case of your affiliation changes, please list where your research is conducted and include your current status or affiliation.
• Department, Institute or Faculty, University, City, Country
• E-mail addresses
• ORCID iD

Mary Smith, Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Abcdefg University, Ankara, Türkiye. [email protected]. https://orcid.org/0000-0000-0000-0000.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author should be marked with an asterisk (*) in the author list.

e.g. (under the title): Ayşe Yılmaz (*)

e.g. (on the footer): *Corresponding Author

Equal Contribution

• The authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a symbol (ؙƐ)
• The authors who share first authorship should be marked with a symbol (Ω)
• The authors who contributed equally to the research and share first authorship (±)
• Please use the appropriate standard statement(s) to indicate equal contributions:
• For (ؙƐ): The authors contributed equally to the research.
• For (Ω): The authors share first authorship.
• For (±): The authors contributed equally to the research and share first authorship.

e.g (under the title): Ayşe Yılmaz(±), Levent Doğan(±), Gündüz Kaya(ؙƐ), Güler Erdoğan (*)(ؙƐ)

e.g. (on the footer):

{Author information}

*Corresponding Author

Ɛ The authors contributed equally to the research.

± The authors contributed equally to the research and share first authorship.

Sections of the Manuscripts

It is recommended to divide your manuscripts into the sections detailed below. However, heading and subheading can differ according to the subject area, the type of manuscript and research itself.

Title page should include the following information and sections:

Title Page Template

1. Title
2. Short running title (max 70 characters, including spaces)
3. Author information (Please refer to the “Author Information” section for the format requirements.)
4. Contact information of corresponding author
5. Word count, number of figures and tables
6. Conflict of interest
7. Ethics committee approval (if applicable)
8. Funding
9. Author contribution
10. Acknowledgements (if applicable)
11. Statement of previous presentation or publication (if any)

Anonymized blind manuscript of an original article should include the following sections: (The structures of the other article types should be modified as explained above.)

1. Title
2. Abstract
3. Keywords
4. Introduction
5. Materials and Methods
6. Results
7. Discussion
8. References
9. Figures and Tables
10. Appendices (if applicable)

Title

The title of the study should reflect the content clearly and be precise. Titles should not exceed two lines and should be in sentence case capitalization, except for proper nouns. Titles should not include abbreviations or acronyms.

A short running title with at most 70 characters (including spaces) should also be provided to print at the top of every other page of the final published article.

Abstract

Abstracts include the aim of the study, its scope, method, main findings, and results, briefly and clearly. Abstracts should not include non-standard abbreviations. Abstracts longer than 300 words are not accepted.

Keywords

Keywords increase the discoverability of articles. They should reflect the scope of the article. The selection of key words should be from MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). The authors can easily select up to 6 key words of the manuscript from the MeSH on Demand homepage (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov).

e.g. Keywords: Conflict resolution, ingroup favouritism, social identity.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments should be extended to those individuals or institutions whose contributions to the study were limited or minimal. Acknowledgements, if given, should be a brief statement on the title page.

Author Contribution

Author’s contribution should be explained in the title page as in the example. Initials of the authors must be in compliance with the following templates:

e.g. For original article: Study conception and design: XX, YY; data collection: YY; analysis and interpretation of results: XX, YY, ZZ; draft manuscript preparation: YY, ZZ. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the article.

e.g. For review: Review conception and design: AU; literature review: AU; draft manuscript preparation: AU. All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.

When submitting the manuscript to the Journal, information about author contribution should be included in the title page. As stated above, the author contribution statement should comply with the authorship criteria recommendations of the ICMJE.

Ethics Committee Approval

Studies that require ethics committee approval should include a statement regarding Ethics Committee Approval in the Methods section of the main document and on the title page.

In the Methods section (which is in the blind main manuscript file), it is imperative to ensure de-identification of any relevant identifying information within the ethics committee approval prior to submission (eg. The study was approved by the XXX Ethics Committee).

The title page must include information on the name of the ethics committee, and date and number of the ethics committee approval (eg. The study was approved by Hacettepe University Ethics Committee (date: 01.01.2024, number: 2024-01). For case reports and for studies requiring informed consent, whether it was obtained should also be declared here.

We do not require, so please do not send a copy of the ethics committee approval.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors should declare any potential conflict of interest in the title page. There may be a conflict of interest when authors (or their employer, sponsor, or family/friends) have a financial, commercial, legal, or professional connection with other organizations or those working with them that could impact the research or the way the results are interpreted. Therefore, authors have to declare financial, commercial, legal or professional competing interests in their title page. If there is no conflict of interest, authors also must declare it in their manuscript using the standard wording below:

“The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest to disclose.”

For more information on publishing ethics policies and conflicts of interest, please see "Research and Publication Ethics" section.

Funding

Authors are required to disclose all funding and financial support received during the development of the study. Authors should indicate this in the title page using the standard wording below:

• The authors declare that the study received no funding.
• The authors declare that the study is supported/funded by [e.g. Science Institute], grant number: [ABC-12345].

References

Everything cited in your manuscript must be in the reference list, and everything in your reference list must be referred to in your manuscript.

In the text, tables, and legends, identify references with superscript Arabic numerals at the end of the sentence (after the full stop).

In the reference list, list all authors up to 6; if more than 6, list the first 3 followed by “et al.” Names of journals are to be abbreviated in accordance with the style of Index Medicus. References should be formatted in line with the NLM Style Guide, but with first and last page numbers written in full, without issue numbers, and no full stop after the journal name. Please see the examples below and a recent issue of the Journal

Authors are directly responsible for ensuring accurate citation and adherence to the specified reference and citation style. Reference management tools such as Zotero, Endnote and Mendeley are highly recommended.

In-text citation examples:

Reference list examples:

Tables and Figures

Visual elements such as tables, figures and diagrams must be referred in the body text. Tables and figures should be small and simple, and numbered in the order of appearance in the body text, and placed at the end of the main manuscript file. Each should be numbered and have a clear descriptive title. If visual elements are not created by the authors, they should be cited and added to the references.

Figures should be in vector format (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap format (Photoshop, TIFF, PNG, JPG, etc.). Figures presented in bitmap formats should be at least 600 DPI resolution. Figures, tables, and graphs must contain self-explanatory labels and unit tags for each parameter or axis.

Tables should be generated using drawing tools of programs such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice. Each data should be given in separate table cells, and no insertions such as enter or spaces should be made. Tables should be editable and should not contain images. Tables should be self-explanatory and supplement, not duplicate the text. The table footnote must contain full terms of all of the abbreviations used in the table.

If the diagrams include a picture or a visual that cannot be edited it should be transferred into Word with 600 DPI resolution and the original diagram should be included in the manuscript.

Tables and Figures should be numbered consecutively and accompanied by a title above the table or figure. All tables and figures should not exceed 16x20 cm in size. Avoid using vertical lines in tables.

Appendices

Additional lists, tables, graphics and etc. should be given separately at the end of the manuscript. Each appendix should be numbered and titled.

e.g. Appendix 1 – List of Data Collection Tool.

Electronic supplementary materials:

Certain information not suitable for including in the printed form of the article, or multimedia files (animation, audio, video etc.) can be submitted as electronic supplementary materials (ESM). Standard file formats should be used for materials intended for electronic publication: Spreadsheets as .xlsx or .csv files, images as .jpeg or .tiff files, audio and video as .avi, .wmv, .mp4, .mov, .m2p, .mp2, .mpg, or .mpeg. Text and presentations should be submitted as .pdf files; .doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx files are not acceptable. Multiple figures, texts or tables etc. may be combined in a .pdf file if needed. Multiple files can be collected and compressed as a .zip or .rar file. Electronic supplementary materials should be numbered consecutively as ESM_1.pdf, ESM_2.xlsx, ESM_3.avi, ESM_4.rar, etc. and the main text of the manuscript must mention all the numbered electronic supplementary materials in order, similar to printed tables and figures (eg. “The patient had vertical supranuclear gaze palsy (Electronic Supplementary Material 1)”). At the end of the main manuscript file, after the figure legends, the authors should include a caption for each of the electronic supplementary files. Please note that 1) the Journal does not host a data repository for all raw research data to be uploaded; 2) large files may take too long to download or cause other problems and hamper user experience; and 3) supplementary materials will be published online as received without reformatting, editing or conversion to another file. The size of each supplementary file may not exceed 128 MB. If you need to upload larger files, please contact the editorial office ([email protected]). Works cited in the electronic supplementary materials should also be cited and numbered in the text of the main document, and listed in the reference list.

Units

• Ensure that all units of measurement are in SI units.
• Use a period in decimal fractions (e.g., 1.24 instead of 1,24).
• Maintain a single space between the number and the unit (e.g., 4 kg/ha, 20 N m, 100 kPa, 22 °C).
• Exceptions for angular definitions, minutes, seconds, and percentage; do not include a space (e.g., 10°, 45’, 60’’, 29%).
• The abbreviation of liter is "L".

Formulas and Equations

For clarity and consistency in formulas and equations, please follow these guidelines:

• Number each formula with the reference number placed in parentheses at the end, e.g., (1).
• Utilize a Word mathematical processor for formulas, ensuring a font size of 12pt.
• Present variables in italics, while numbers and mathematical definitions should be in plain text.
• When referencing a formula in the text, use a format similar to the example provided.

e.g. "...the model, as depicted in Equation 1."

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Turkish Journal of Family Practice complies with the current ICMJE and COPE guidelines, and acknowledges the guidance of the Turkish Council of Higher Education in the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology.

At submission, the authors must disclose whether they used AI-assisted technologies (such as Large Language Models [LLMs], chatbots [eg. ChatGPT], machine learning, image creators or similar technologies) in any part of the production of the submitted work. If they did, they must confirm that they take responsibility for the integrity of the generated content. Disclosure of AI use must include the name and manufacturer of the AI tool, the date(s) of use, and how it was used in relation to the manuscript. Authors who use these tools should describe how and where they used them, and to what extent.

If AI was used for writing assistance, this should be stated on the Title Page as a separate declaration. The authors should fill in the designated parts on our title page template.

If AI was used for data collection, analysis, or figure generation, this should be described in detail in the Materials and Methods section. It is appropriate to use AI in the collection or analysis of data only if this methodology has already been approved by an ethics board (for studies requiring ethical approval).

In either case, the use of AI should also be declared in the cover letter.

AI-assisted tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of the work, cannot determine the presence of conflicts of interest, and these responsibilities are required for authorship (see above, Authorship Criteria). Similarly, AI should not be cited as an author.

Before using any AI-assisted technology, authors should understand how it works, and its potential risks. Authors should carefully review and edit any AI output because AI can generate authoritative-sounding output that may be incorrect, incomplete, or biased. AI can use a wide variety of data as input, and produce output that may be hard to trace back to its original source. Mere declaration of the use of AI is not enough to avoid legal or ethical violations, including plagiarism. Authors must be able to assert that AI has been used within the extent of applicable laws, and that there is no plagiarism in their paper, including in the text and images completely or partly produced by the AI tool. Authors are responsible for all aspects of any submitted material that includes the use of AI-assisted technologies.

Turkish Journal of Family Practice runs plagiarism and AI-use checks on all accepted manuscripts prior to publication. We discourage large-scale use of AI-assisted technology to the extent that the original human contribution to the work is brought to question (eg. large portions of text written almost completely by AI). Failure to properly disclose the use of AI-assisted technology at submission, both in the cover letter and in the appropriate part of either the title page (for writing assistance) or the main document (for methodology) as described above may result in the reversal of the acceptance decision, or in the retraction of a published manuscript.

This does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references etc.

Language Editing

The publication language of the Turkish Journal of Family Practice is English. Manuscripts can be submitted in English only. The submitted manuscript should comply with the grammar and spelling rules, and the relevant scientific literature, and meet language standards for publication.

Editors may ask authors for language editing and proofreading. Accepted articles can be published only after the language editing and proofreading request are met.