Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to each of the three components mentioned below:

1.      Concept and design of study or acquisition of data or analysis and interpretation of data

2.      Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and

3.      Final approval of the version to be published.

Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript. The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing the manuscript. Once submitted the order cannot be changed without written consent of all the contributors. The journal prescribes a maximum number of authors for manuscripts depending upon the type of manuscript, its scope and number of institutions involved (vide infra). The authors should provide a justification, if the number of authors exceeds these limits.

Contribution Details

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Contributors should provide a description of contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. Description should be divided in following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing and manuscript review. Authors' contributions will be printed along with the article. One or more author should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as 'guarantor'. 

Conflicts of Interest/ Competing Interests

All authors of articles must disclose any and all conflicts of interest they may have with publication of the manuscript or an institution or product that is mentioned in the manuscript and/or is important to the outcome of the study presented. Authors should also disclose conflict of interest with products that compete with those mentioned in their manuscript. If the articles are authored by the editorial board, the conflict of interest must be clearly stated. ​

Online Submission of the Manuscripts

All manuscripts must be submitted on-line through the website http://www.journalonweb.com/ijoem. First time users will have to register at this site. Registration is free but mandatory. Registered authors can keep track of their articles after logging into the site using their username and password. Authors do not have to pay for submission, processing or publication of articles. If you experience any problems, please contact the editorial office by e-mail at editor [AT] ijoem.com.

The submitted manuscripts that are not as per the “Instructions to Authors" would be returned to the authors for technical correction, before they undergo editorial/ peer-review. Generally, the manuscript should be submitted in the form of two separate files:

First Page File: Prepare the title page, covering letter, acknowledgement, etc. using a word processor program. All information which can reveal your identity should be here. Use doc/docx files. Do not zip the files.

• The type of manuscript (original article, case report, review article, Letter to editor, Images, etc.) title of the manuscript, running title, names of all authors/ contributors (with their highest academic degrees, designation and affiliations) and name(s) of department(s) and/ or institution(s) to which the work should be credited. All information which can reveal your institute affiliation should be here. Use text/rtf/doc files. Do not zip the files;
• The total number of pages, total number of photographs and word counts separately for abstract and for the text (excluding the references, tables and abstract), word counts for introduction + discussion in case of an original article;
• If the manuscript was presented as part at a meeting, the organization, place, and exact date on which it was read. A full statement to the editor about all submissions and previous reports that might be regarded as redundant publication of the same or very similar work. Any such work should be referred to specifically and referenced in the new paper. Copies of such material should be included with the submitted paper, to help the editor decide how to handle the matter.
• Registration number in case of a clinical trial and where it is registered (name of the registry and its URL)
• A statement that the manuscript has been read and approved by all the authors, that the requirements for authorship as stated earlier in this document have been met, and that each author believes that the manuscript represents honest work, if that information is not provided in another form (see below); and
• The name, address, e-mail, and telephone number of the corresponding author, who is responsible for communicating with the other authors about revisions and final approval of the proofs, if that information is not included on the manuscript itself.

Article file: The main text of the article, beginning from Abstract till References (including tables) should be in this file. Do not include any information (such as acknowledgement, your names in page headers, etc.) in this file. Use doc/docx files. Do not zip the files. Limit the file size to 400 kb. Do not incorporate images in the file. If file size is large, graphs can be submitted as images separately without incorporating them in the article file to reduce the size of the file.
 

Images: Submit good quality color images. Each image should be less than 400 kb in size. Size of the image can be reduced by decreasing the actual height and width of the images (keep up to 1024x760 pixels or 5 inches). All image formats (jpeg, tiff, gif, bmp, png, eps, etc.) are acceptable; jpeg is most suitable. Do not zip the files.
 

Legends: Legends for the figures/images should be included at the end of the article file. 

If the manuscript is submitted online, the contributors' form and copyright transfer form has to be submitted in original with the signatures of all the contributors within two weeks from submission. Hard copies of the images (one set), for articles submitted online, should be sent to the journal office at the time of submission of a revised manuscript. Editorial office: C/O Prof. Bobby Joseph, MD DNB, Division of Occupational Health Services, Department of Community Health, St. John's Medical College, Bangalore - 560034, Karnataka, India. Office: +91 80 4946 6133 Mobile: +91 9900163821. 

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Reporting Guidelines for Specific Study Designs

Guideline	Type of Study	Source
STROBE	Observational studies including cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies	https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists
CONSORT	Randomized controlled trials	http://www.consort-statement.org
SQUIRE	Quality improvement projects	http://squire-statement.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&PageID=471
PRISMA	Systematic reviews and meta-analyses	http://prisma-statement.org/PRISMAStatement/Checklist.aspx
STARD	Studies of diagnostic accuracy	https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2015151516
CARE	Case Reports	https://www.care-statement.org/checklist
AGREE	Clinical Practice Guidelines	https://www.agreetrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/AGREE-Reporting-Checklist-2016.pdf

The reporting guidelines for other type of studies can be found at https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/. 

Statistics: Whenever possible quantify findings and present them with appropriate indicators of measurement error or uncertainty (such as confidence intervals). Authors should report losses to observation (such as, dropouts from a clinical trial). When data are summarized in the Results section, specify the statistical methods used to analyze them. Avoid non-technical uses of technical terms in statistics, such as 'random' (which implies a randomizing device), 'normal', 'significant', 'correlations', and 'sample'. Define statistical terms, abbreviations, and most symbols. Specify the computer software used. Use upper italics (P 0.048). For all P values include the exact value and not less than 0.05 or 0.001. Mean differences in continuous variables, proportions in categorical variables and relative risks including odds ratios and hazard ratios should be accompanied by their confidence intervals.

Results
Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations, giving the main or most important findings first. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations. Extra or supplementary materials and technical detail can be placed in an appendix where it will be accessible but will not interrupt the flow of the text; alternatively, it can be published only in the electronic version of the journal.

Discussion
Include Summary of key findings (primary outcome measures, secondary outcome measures, results as they relate to a prior hypothesis); Strengths and limitations of the study (study question, study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation); Interpretation and implications in the context of the totality of evidence (is there a systematic review to refer to, if not, could one be reasonably done here and now?, what this study adds to the available evidence, effects on patient care and health policy, possible mechanisms); Controversies raised by this study; and Future research directions (for this particular research collaboration, underlying mechanisms, clinical research). Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. In particular, contributors should avoid making statements on economic benefits and costs unless their manuscript includes economic data and analyses. Avoid claiming priority and alluding to work that has not been completed. State new hypotheses when warranted, but clearly label them as such. 

References
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text (not in alphabetic order). Identify references in text, tables, and legends by Arabic numerals in square bracket (e.g. [10]). 
The commonly cited types of references are shown here, for other types of references such as electronic media, newspaper items, etc. please refer to ICMJE Guidelines (http://www.icmje.org or http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html).

Download a PowerPoint presentation on common reference styles and using the reference checking facility on the manuscript submission site.

Articles in Journals
1. Standard journal article: Kulkarni SB, Chitre RG, Satoskar RS. Serum proteins in tuberculosis. J Postgrad Med 1960;6:113-20. 
List the first six contributors followed by et al. 
2. Volume with supplement: Shen HM, Zhang QF. Risk assessment of nickel carcinogenicity and occupational lung cancer. Environ Health Perspect 1994; 102 Suppl 1:275-82. 
Books and Other Monographs
3. Editor(s), compiler(s) as author: Norman IJ, Redfern SJ, editors. Mental health care for elderly people. New York: Churchill Livingstone; 1996. 
4. Chapter in a book: Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press; 1995. pp. 465-78. 

Tables

• Tables should be self-explanatory and should not duplicate textual material. 
• Tables with more than 10 columns and 25 rows are not acceptable. 
• Number tables, in Arabic numerals, consecutively in the order of their first citation in the text and supply a brief title for each.
• Explain in footnotes all non-standard abbreviations that are used in each table. 
• For footnotes use the following symbols, in this sequence: *, †, ‡, §, ||, , **, ††, ‡‡ ​

Illustrations (Figures)

• Send sharp, glossy, un-mounted, color photographic prints, with height of 4 inches and width of 6 inches. 
• Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been first cited in the text. 
• Each figure should have a label pasted (avoid use of liquid gum for pasting) on its back indicating the number of the figure, the running title, top of the figure and the legends of the figure. Do not write the contributor/s' name/s. Do not write on the back of figures, scratch, or mark them by using paper clips. 
• Labels, numbers, and symbols should be clear and of uniform size. The lettering for figures should be large enough to be legible after reduction to fit the width of a printed column. 
• Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background and should marked neatly with transfer type or by tissue overlay and not by pen. 
• Print outs of digital photographs are not acceptable. For digital images send TIFF files of minimum 1200 x 1600 pixel size.
• The Journal reserves the right to crop, rotate, reduce, or enlarge the photographs to an acceptable size. 
  
  Legends for Illustrations

• Type or print out legends (maximum 40 words, excluding the credit line) for illustrations using double spacing, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations. 
  
  Electronic Version

• Manuscript sent by post must be accompanied by a 3.5 inch (1.44 MB) floppy or CD containing the manuscript.
  
  List of Abbreviations: Include a list of abbreviations along with its description used in the manuscript.
  
  Acknowledgements: For non-author contributions, one or more statements should specify 1) contributions that need acknowledging but do not justify authorship, such as general support by a departmental chair; 2) acknowledgments of technical help; and 3) acknowledgments of financial and material support, which should specify the nature of the support. Details of the non-author contributors can be cited individually or collectively, and their precise contributions should be specified. The corresponding author is required to obtain written permission to be acknowledged from all acknowledged individuals.
  
  Financial disclosure: Manuscripts should include details about the funding agency/ sponsors, grant number and the role of funders. If the funders have no role to play or the study did not receive funding, a statement declaring the same should be mentioned. 
  
  Conflict of interest: All manuscripts for articles, original research reports, editorials, comments, reviews, book reviews, and letters submitted to the journal must include a conflict of interest disclosure statement or a declaration by the authors that they do not have any conflicts of interest to declare.
  
  Data Availability statement: All manuscripts should include a statement about where data supporting the results reported in a published article can be found.