Editorial Policy
Overview of the EJPCH Editorial Policies
The Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health (EJPCH) is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal committed to advancing science, discovery, and healthcare in the fields of pediatrics, child health, and related disciplines. It is the official organ of the Ethiopian Pediatrics Society. It publishes issues both online at http://ejpch.net/index.php/ejpch with eISSN2519-0334 and print versions ISSN2413-2640. Originally published biannually in July and December until December 2024. In the year 2025, the publication schedule was adjusted to May 1 and September 1 to adjust for a planned increase in frequency. Beginning in 2026, EJPCH's annual publication frequency increased to three issues per year, with new issues released on January 1, May 1, and September 1.
EJPCH endorses the national journal accreditation guideline of Ethiopia and other international guidelines, including the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policies for Medical Editors. By default, authors submitting a manuscript to EJPCH are assumed to have read and agreed to the journal's editorial policies. EJPCH online publications are open access and can be fully accessible under CC BY 4.0 public copyright licenses, which is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License ("Public License").
Manuscript review procedures
To ensure the best possible publication quality and hence reputation, the journal will subject all submissions to an independent, rigorous review by a minimum of two reviewers for Original Articles before making a decision on acceptance or rejection. EJPCH follows the double-blind review system for review processes. The Editorial Board will guide as well as oversee the quality of the review of submitted manuscripts, including the identification of the qualified expertise and acceptance or rejection of a contribution that falls under the sole discretion of the Editorial Board. In addition, the Editorial Board will implement the utmost effective, efficient, and objective possible review system. Likewise, the Editorial Board will adhere to the fundamental ethical principles throughout the review process. A detailed review form template has been prepared to remind all scientific and formatting contents of the manuscript that shall be sent to the reviewers with the manuscript.
The procedures for manuscript review include:
Within one week of receiving a manuscript, the Editorial Board will review it in reference to (i) conformity with the journal’s style and format according to guidelines to authors (http://ejpch.net/index.php/ejpch/about/submissions#authorGuidelines) (ii) relevance of the article to the scope of the EJPCH, (iii) clarity of presentation, and (iv) anti-plagiarism software.
The Editorial Board has three options when it comes with manuscripts; accept manuscripts for external review, return them to the author for revision, or reject them. A manuscript not accepted by a board member is blindly reviewed by another board member. If not accepted by both, the manuscript is rejected by Editorial Board. A decision will be made by the suggestion of a third Editorial Board member of the decisions of the first two do not concur. The Editor in Chief manages manuscripts review process for papers submitted by any of the editorial board member or editors.
When a manuscript is accepted for external review, the Editorial Board identifies one (for Brief communication, Case reports, and teaching articles) or two reviewers (for original articles, protocol, or review article) with appropriate expertise. The reviewers will be asked to review and return manuscripts with their comments online within two weeks of their receipt. Reviewers have four options; accept, accept with major revision, Accept with minor revision or reject. During the peer-review process, all EJPCH reviewers are obliged to adhere to the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers.
A manuscript accepted subject to revision as suggested by reviewers will be returned to the corresponding author. The author(s) will be have four weeks to respond to reviewers’ comments, make all necessary changes, and return the manuscript to the Editorial Board. The Editorial board with clear and accept manuscripts with minor revisions. Those with major revisions will be sent to external reviewers, who will follow the same procedures as outlined for the initial review.
General information
- The Editorial Board reserves the final decision on whether to accept, reject, or correct of papers submitted.
- Accepted papers are subject to Editorial revisions as required and become the copy-right of the EPS.
The first/corresponding author receives twenty-five complimentary reprints of published articles.
- The Editorial Board encourages Journal readers to provide comments on the guidelines.
Galley Proof:
Galley Proofreading is a standard requirement for being able to address potential editing and type errors. The time limit for the Galley Proof review and revision is 98 hours or one week. The Corresponding Author will be solely responsible for ensuring that this condition is met.
Authorship
Before submission of the manuscript to EJPCH, authors need to clear the authorship roles and acknowledgments upon merit. The Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health will require optimal ethical fulfillment of research processes and hence thereof products subject for possible publication. Likewise, a prior declaration of possible conflict of interest of the author(s) is a standard requirement. An “author” is someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. For anyone listed as the author of any manuscript submitted to EJPCH, ALL FOUR of the following criteria shall require to be met:
- Substantial contribution(s) to conception or design of the work or acquisition of data, or analysis or interpretation of data; and
- Drafting the article 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.
NOTE: Authorship can not be established solely on basis of funding, data collecting, or general supervision of the research work.
Corresponding author
Corresponding authors are in charge of making sure that all listed authors have approved the manuscript prior to submission, including the names and order of authors, and that all authors receive the submission, all substantive correspondence with editors, and the complete reviews. They are also responsible for confirming that all data, figures, materials (including reagents), and code, including those created or supplied by other authors comply with the transparency and reproducibility standards of the field and journal.
Some of the responsibilities of the corresponding author include but not limited to (i) ensuring that the original data, figures, materials, and code that form the basis of the submission are preserved in accordance with best practices so that they can be retrieved for reanalysis; (ii) verifying that the data, figures, materials, and code presentation accurately reflects the original; and (iii) anticipating and reducing barriers to the sharing of the data, materials, and code described in the work. The corresponding author should be in charge of overseeing these standards for the entire author group and making sure that everyone is completely aware of and adhering to best practices in the publication discipline.
Uniformity of the standard of practice
The Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health shall adhere uniformly applied standards of practice, including formats and style, that Contributing Author(s) must meet when submitting a contribution. For biomedical and biological research, the checklist for complete and transparent reporting which is suitable for each type of study must be completed before peer review and made available to the Editors and reviewers.
Ethical standard and consent for publication
Human and animal participants and registration of clinical trials.
For manuscripts submitted to the Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health, the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee should approve the conduction of the studies. A brief description of the ethics committees approving the conduction of the study should be included. For all experiments involving human participants, information about the securing of informed consent should be included or whenever there is the exemption of ethical approval, the reason for the exemption shall be explained and the decision by the official IRB should be included in the manuscript under ethical consideration section. All experiments conducted on humans must have been conducted according to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors must follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' policy and trial information should be deposited into the accepted clinical trial registry before the onset of patient enrollment and the registry name and registration number should be included on the title page. For researches involving human embryos and gametes, stem cells and related materials, the manuscript submitted needs to follow the principles laid out in the 2016 ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation.
For animal studies, authors must report the species, strain, sex, and age of the animals. Ethical guidelines for studies involving animals is published by International Council for Laboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) and the authors advised to follow that and other relevant nationally and/or internationally accepted guidelines.
Authors are advised to follow the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ and sex and gender considerations should be included as relevant to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. The terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (socially or culturally constructed attribute) should be used carefully without resulting in ambiguity and confusion. Authors should clearly indicate on which sex the study was conducted either in the title or abstract.
Consent for publication
Manuscripts in which their reports include details, images, or videos of an individual person, should have written informed consent for the publication of the details under the relevant Creative Commons license from that person or parent or legal guardian for children under 18 or their next kin if the person died. Receipt of the written informed consent for publication should be clearly described in the manuscripts submitted to EJPCH. The manuscript must include a statement that written informed consent for publication was obtained. If the images are entirely unidentifiable with no details about an individual participating in the study, consent for publication of images may not be required. The final decision on whether consent to publish is required lies with the Editor.
Systematic reviews registration
Prospective registration of systematic reviews in a suitable registry such as PROSPERO. Authors who have registered their systematic review should include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract.
Data availability and deposition
All relevant raw data and related information need to be freely available to be used for non-commercial purposes without breaching the confidentiality of the participants. All datasets on which the research findings rely should be available to readers and recommended to be deposited in suitable repositories or submitted as supporting files with the manuscript.
Allegations of misconduct.
Suspected errors and allegations of misconduct will be investigated with absolute confidentiality, following the procedures provided in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts. Please be aware that all investigations are confidential. For any error identified or misconduct that happened, the journal will try to correct it with an erratum or retraction if the condition is severe enough. The final decision will be subject to the editor-in-chief of the journal. Investigations that result in no error or misconduct being found will not be publicized.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Use of large language models (LLMs) should be clearly declared in the methods section or other suitable section of the manuscript. The use of an LLM or other AI tool for copy editing purposes does not need to be declared. AI should be used for aided copyediting, which is the process of improving human-generated writing with AI assistance to make it more readable and stylish while also ensuring that it is free of grammatical, spelling, punctuation, and tone issues. These AI-assisted enhancements might involve text formatting and phrasing adjustments, but they do not entail autonomous content generation or generative editing. The final version of the text must always be subject to human accountability, and the authors must agree that the changes accurately represent their original work.
Privacy Statement
EJPCH may collect and use personal information that is necessary for the processing and publication of manuscripts submitted to us. This information may include names, affiliations, and contact details, including postal address, emails, phone numbers, and fax numbers. Any personal information received by EJPCH will be used solely to process and publish the manuscripts and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.
Conflict of Interest
EJPCH adheres to the policy and uses the standardized disclosure form of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The corresponding author must include a statement regarding the conflict of interest and should disclose any possible conflict of interest when submitting the manuscript. The author/s should declare that no conflict of interest could jeopardize the impartiality of the research reported, or clearly declare any financial or other potential conflicts of interest.
Copyright privileges:
Papers that have already been accepted for publication in the Ethiopian Journal of Pediatrics will automatically become the Journal’s copyright, which Contributing Authors must clear by completing and signing the Copyright Form in accordance with the Journal’s copyright policy before actual publication.
Reprints:
Upon publication of the corresponding contribution, a limit of 25 reprints of the specific issue will be supplied to the Corresponding Author.
Retention policy:
The Editorial Board reserves the right to retain manuscripts that have been rejected.
