Instructions for Authors

The Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health welcomes papers from all disciplines addressing child and adolescent mental health. Please refer to our Aims & Scope before reviewing the guidelines below. 

Submission 

Manuscripts should be submitted online at the Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health, ScholarOne Manuscripts site. 

Manuscript Presentation 

Manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word or compatible format. Avoid creative formatting. Consult a recent copy of the journal for general layout and style. Manuscripts should be submitted in English with UK spelling. Consult the Oxford English Dictionary for language usage. Headings: Use sentence case for the title and all headings. Format headings in the following styles: First Level bold; Second level bold italic; Third level italic. Headings should not be numbered. Include tables and figures in the main manuscript, not in separate files. All identifying information should be redacted to facilitate anonymous peer review.

Title Page: Include a separate title page. The title page should include:
Title of manuscript: This should be brief, sufficiently informative for retrieval by automatic searching techniques, and should contain important keywords. 
Author(s) and address(es) of author(s): The corresponding author must be indicated, and an email address and telephone number provided. The authors’ respective addresses where the work was conducted must be indicated. Please also include ORCID IDs where available. 
Abstract: Please include a concise statement of the content of the paper, not exceeding 250 words (see further information regarding abstracts below).
Keywords: 4-8 keywords, sufficiently informative for retrieval by automatic searching techniques.
Declarations
Funding Statement
Conflict of Interest Statement
Ethical Approval Statement
Acknowledgements (where relevant)
Authorship Statement: Acknowledge the contribution of each author, adhering to the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement.

Manuscripts

Original Research (Qualitative, Quantitative, Mixed-Methods): Original Articles should not exceed 5 000 words, exclusive of references, tables, and figures. The abstract should be structured as follows: Background, Objective, Method, Results, Conclusion. The manuscript should be structured as follows: Background: the context for the manuscript; Objective: the primary purpose of the manuscript; Method: design, IRB (ethical) approval, recruitment, informed consent, measurements/data collection, dates of data collection, data analysis; Results: key findings; Discussion: addressing key findings in the context of the extant literature, limitations; and Conclusions: implications, future directions.

Meta-Analyses and Structured Reviews: These should not exceed 8 000 words, exclusive of references, tables, and figures. The abstract should be structured as follows: Background, Objective, Method, Results, Conclusion. The manuscript should be structured as follows: Background: the context for the manuscript; Objective: the primary purpose of the manuscript; Method: design, search strategy, in/exclusion criteria, limits (e.g. years), date of last search conducted, data extraction and synthesis, quality appraisal/risk of bias; Results: key findings; Discussion: addressing key findings in the context of the extant literature, limitations; and Conclusions: implications, future directions.

Conceptual or Theoretical Perspectives: These should not exceed 4 000 words, exclusive of references, tables, and figures. The abstract should be unstructured and must be a concise statement of the content of the manuscript.

Innovative Methodological Research: These should not exceed 4 000 words, exclusive of references, tables, and figures. The abstract should be structured as follows: Background, Objective, Method, Results, Conclusion. The manuscript should be structured as follows: Background: the context for the manuscript; Objective: the primary purpose of the manuscript; Method; Results: key findings; Discussion: addressing key findings in the context of the extant literature, limitations; and Conclusions: implications, future directions.

Letters to the Editor: These are commentaries on papers published within the Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health and should not exceed 2 000 words. No abstract is necessary.

Referencing

The Journal uses the APA (7th edn) author-date system. Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and each entry in the reference list must be cited in the text. 

Tables and figures 

Include tables and figures in the main manuscript, not in separate files. Each table and figure must be numbered with Arabic numerals and must be accompanied by an appropriate stand-alone heading or caption. Figures must not repeat data presented in the text or tables. Authors must ensure that their figures conform to the style of the journal. Pay particular attention to line thickness, font, and figure proportions, taking into account the Journal’s printed page size (140 mm wide x 256 mm high). Costs of redrawing figures may be charged. Please refer to Figure Guidelines for Authors: format, style and technical considerations available for download below. For digital photographs or scanned images, the resolution should be at least 300 dpi for colour or greyscale artwork and a minimum of 600 dpi for black line drawings. These can be saved (in order of preference) in PSD, JPEG, PDF or EPS format. Graphs, charts or maps can be saved in AI, PDF or EPS format. MS Office files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) are also acceptable but DO NOT EMBED Excel graphs or PowerPoint slides in an MS Word document, rather send the original Excel or PowerPoint files. More detailed technical information is provided in Figure Guidelines for Authors.

Editorial policy 

Submission of a manuscript implies that the material has not been published previously, nor is being considered for publication elsewhere. Submission of a manuscript will be taken to imply transfer of copyright of the material to the publishers, NISC (Pty) Ltd. Contributions are accepted on the understanding that the authors have the authority for publication. Material accepted for publication in this journal may not be reprinted or published in translation without the express permission of the publishers, NISC. The Journal has a policy of anonymous peer review. Authors’ names are withheld from referees, but it is their responsibility to ensure that any identifying material is removed from the manuscript. The Editor reserves the right to revise the final draft of the manuscript to conform to editorial requirements. Contributions must conform to the principles outlined in Ethical considerations in research publication available for download below. 

Electronic reprints 

Authors will be notified by email when their article is available for download from the journal website.

Publication Model 

The Journal of Child & Adolescent Mental Health is a hybrid journal which allows authors the option of publishing their article Open Access for a set fee. Further details are provided at Publishing Open Access at NISC.

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