ISSN 2477-9393
online versión

ISSN 0535-5133
Print version

INSTRicIONS TO AUTHORS

• Scope and editorial policy
• Form and preparation of manuscripts

Investigación Clínica is a scientific journal dedicated to publishing original articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and case reports in the field of clinical and biomedical research. Its main focus covers studies in humans, animal models, and laboratory research that provide significant advances in diagnosis, treatment, pathophysiology, and disease prevention.

The journal covers various specialties such as internal medicine, clinical pharmacology, epidemiology, medical genetics, and immunology, with an emphasis on findings transferable to medical practice.

Committed to scientific rigor, Investigación Clínica uses a double-blind peer review system to ensure the quality of accepted manuscripts. In addition to research articles, it includes sections such as editorials, letters to the editor, and critical reviews of emerging topics.

Its international scope prioritizes contributions from Latin America, fostering global collaboration and promoting knowledge exchange and advancement in health sciences.

Investigación Clínica publishes Original Articles, Reviews, and Clinical Case Reports in Spanish and English that contribute to the advancement of knowledge in human or animal biology. It also includes a “Letters to the Editor” section.

Manuscript Submission

The manuscript (Word for Windows®), with its corresponding checklist and accompanied by a cover letter to the editor, must be sent by email to riclinicas@gmail.com / elenaryder@gmail.com. Tables and figures, if any, should be placed at the end of the manuscript. In addition to the manuscript, the names of three possible reviewers and their institutional and email addresses may be included. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to decide whether to use any of the suggested reviewers. All correspondence, including referee opinions, revision requirements, and notification of the Editorial Committee's decision, will be communicated by email. Follow-up correspondence must include the code assigned by the journal in the acknowledgment letter.

Cover Letter

The manuscript must be accompanied by a letter signed by all authors, stating that they have actively participated in the work, that it has not been previously published, that they are aware it is being submitted to Investigación Clínica for publication, and that it has not been sent to another journal for consideration. Authorship must be based on:

1) Substantial contribution to the conception and design of the study, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation; 2) Critical revision of the article; and 3) Approval of the final version to be published. Obtaining funding, data collection, or supervision of the research group alone does not justify authorship. Group members who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. The order of authors cannot be changed once the work has been accepted. The cover letter must include: funding, contribution of each author and their ORCID number, and any conflict of interest.

Peer Review System

The peer review process will be conducted electronically. All manuscripts will be considered by the Editorial Committee, which will decide whether to send them for review or reject them for not meeting editorial standards or lacking sufficient quality. The corresponding author will receive an acknowledgment letter with a numerical code.

Original Articles and Case Reports will be reviewed by two experts in the relevant field, and Reviews by one. Reviewers will have a maximum of two months to respond. If both reviewers agree, the Editorial Committee may make a decision; in case of disagreement, a third reviewer’s opinion will be sought. Additional opinions may be requested if necessary. The names of reviewers and authors will remain strictly confidential; the journal follows a double-blind review process. Authors will receive the full opinions regarding their work, whether for modifications or rejection. The deadline to respond to reviewers’ recommendations is two months, after which the work will be rejected or resubmitted as new.

Publication Fee: All accepted manuscripts are subject to an editorial handling fee.

Editorial Guidelines

Manuscripts must be double-spaced, with wide margins and page numbers. Use Word for Windows and preferably Times New Roman 12.

Original Articles, Reviews, and Case Reports must be unpublished contributions of importance to the advancement of knowledge in the subject area. The first page must include:

• The title with an initial capital letter or for proper names; then the first name, middle initial, and full last name of the authors; if two last names are used, separate them with a hyphen. Each author’s name should have superscript numbers corresponding to their institutional affiliations. Do not repeat if they belong to the same institution, just use the respective superscript. Do not include professional titles.
• A short title of no more than 75 characters, in the language of the manuscript.
• Keywords: On a separate line, provide three to six keywords in Spanish and English, avoiding repetition of words in the title.
• Corresponding author: Provide full name, without academic titles, institutional address, city, country, phone, and email.

Next, provide a summary in Spanish and the title and abstract in English. If the author is not proficient in English, it is important to consult a language specialist before submitting the work or abstracts in that language. American English is required. A manuscript may be rejected if it requires extensive language corrections.

Original Articles should include: Summary in Spanish and English, Introduction, Materials and Methods or Patients and Methods (if the study involves humans), Results, Discussion, Tables, Figures, Acknowledgments, and References. Tables and figures should be presented separately from the manuscript. The journal does not have a Conclusions section; conclusions should be included at the end of the Discussion.

The summary should be a maximum of 250 words and state the objectives, methodology, original findings, and conclusions based on the results presented. It should not contain references or be structured. A brief conclusion should be included at the end. Avoid abbreviations; if necessary, define them at first mention.

The abstract must be written in American English and follow the same guidelines as the summary.

Introduction: Should include background and general information on the subject, controversial findings, questions and contributions, and finally the main objective of the research.

Materials and Methods: This section should describe the characteristics and size of the sample. For human studies, include informed consent and specify inclusion and exclusion criteria. Describe the materials used, approval by the institution’s Ethics Committee, and compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1975, revised 2013). Avoid using initials or hospital record numbers, and do not include patient photos without written consent. Animal studies must comply with international ethical standards for laboratory animals. Procedures should be described in sufficient detail to allow replication. Non-original methods must be referenced, and equipment and reagents should include the supplier’s name and country.

Statistical Analysis: Indicate the platform used, version, and statistical tests employed. Results should be presented in past tense, in a logical sequence in text, tables, and figures. Only highlight important observations. Laboratory values and units must be expressed in the International System (SI). Do not repeat in the text what is shown in tables or figures; only summarize. Tables and figures should be on separate sheets, not photographs. Number tables and figures with Arabic numerals. Do not use acronyms in titles unless previously defined.

Discussion: Mention the main findings, compare results with the literature, contributions and strengths, limitations, suggest future research, and end with a conclusion based on the results.

Narrative Reviews must be written by specialists in the field and include the author’s contributions, either in references or with a discussion of the reviewed topic. Maximum of four authors. Reviews that are merely bibliographic descriptions without analysis will not be accepted. The body of reviews is free, but it is advisable to subdivide into sections. Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses must follow international guidelines such as PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) or similar methods.

Case Reports refer to the presentation of rare clinical cases. They should include a brief introduction to the pathology, case description, and discussion with supporting references. Limit the discussion to the most notable aspects of the case.

Letters to the Editor should comment on recent publications in the journal and, if possible, not exceed two pages, including references.

Tables: Each table should occupy a separate page and be numbered with Arabic numerals. Include a descriptive, centered title. Columns should not be separated by lines. Notes related to the table content should be written at the bottom, preceded by the corresponding symbols. The journal does not accept “Source of information” for results presented in the same article, only if from another source. If the article is in Spanish, use a comma for decimals; if in English, use a period.

Figures: Follow these general points: each figure must be sent in a separate file, in the program in which it was generated (e.g., GraphPad Prism®). The figure number must be Arabic and match the sequence in the text. Ensure uniform font type and size. All figures must be at least 300 dpi. Color figures must be sent in TIFF or RGB format. Figure legends must be sent separately, with enough information to avoid referring to the text. Radiographic images must not contain patient-identifying legends. Photographs may be in black and white or color, must have adequate contrast for reproduction, and be in JPG or TIFF format: color or grayscale photos must be at least 600 dpi. For electron micrographs, ensure clarity of findings and indicate them with symbols. Indicate magnification, preferably with a scale bar (microns, millimicrons, nanometers, etc.). Legends should not be incorporated into the photo and must be on a separate page, sufficiently explanatory. The journal will not accept photos or figures taken from other journals without proper authorization.

References: All references must be cited in the text with a superscript number and listed in order of appearance, following the international standards “Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals”, updated December 2021 (http://www.icmje.org); that is, first the last name with an initial capital letter, then initials of the first name, also capitalized (no periods), for all authors. Author names must be in bold and separated by commas. Do not use “et al.” in the references section.

The full title of the work should have capitals only at the beginning and for proper names. The journal title must be abbreviated according to Index Medicus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov), followed by year, volume, and first and last pages separated by a hyphen. Then, include the DOI. Unpublished observations, personal communications, or works submitted for publication are not accepted as references; however, these may be cited in parentheses in the text. If the author is an organization, use the organization's name as the reference.

Examples:

• Journal articles: Jaspe RC, Sulbarán Y, Hidalgo M, Loureiro CL, Moros ZC, Garzaro D, Rangel HR, Pujol FH. A simple method for detection of mutations in amino acid 452 of the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 using restriction enzyme analysis. Invest Clin 2021; 62(4): 371-377. https://doi.org/10.22209/IC.v62n4a07.
• Books: Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM. Principles of neural science. New York: McGraw Hill; 2001, p. 1227-1246.
• Book chapters: Molina-Vilchez R, Diez-Ewald M, Fernández G. Anemia y Embarazo. In: Zighelboim I, Guariglia D, Eds. Clínica Obstétrica. Caracas: Disinlimed; 2000. p. 570-577.
• Conference proceedings: Metabolic benefits of lifestyle intervention in the clinical setting: a pilot study in Latinos with prediabetes from Venezuela, South America. Victoria Stepenka, Yoleida Rivas, Juan Casal, Roberto Gutiérrez, Elena Ryder, Hermes Florez. 70th Scientific Sessions. American Diabetes Association. June 25-29, 2010, Orlando, USA.
• Theses: León-N I. Characterization of isolates of the Sporothrix spp. complex from different regions of Venezuela [Master’s thesis]. Caracas: IVIC; 2013.
• Electronic journal: Calvo B, Melo A, Perozo A, Hernández M, Francisco E, Hagen F, Meis J, Colombo J. First report of Candida auris in America: clinical and microbiological aspects of 18 episodes of candidaemia. J Infect 2016 [cited 2017 February 10]. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.inf.2016.07.008.

Limit to a maximum of 50 references for original articles and 100 for Narrative and Systematic Reviews or Meta-Analyses. It is recommended to carefully review the latest issue of the journal as a guide for manuscript preparation (http://sites.google.com/site/revistainvestigacionesclinicas).

Checklist

• Letter signed by all authors, indicating the corresponding author, each author’s contribution, and stating that the work has not been previously published or submitted elsewhere.
• Pages numbered sequentially.
• Title in Spanish.
• Title in English.
• Short title in the main language of the manuscript.
• List of authors with full names, without professional titles.
• Unstructured summary in English and Spanish, no more than 250 words, including introduction, basic procedures, results, and conclusion.
• Concise introduction related to the study objective.
• Materials and Methods or Materials and Patients, described precisely with appropriate references.
• Specification of statistical analysis (when required).
• Results presented clearly and logically without discussion.
• Discussion based on the findings.
• References listed in order of appearance, cited in the text, and according to journal specifications.
• No personal communications or conference presentations without abstracts are accepted.
• Tables with notes at the bottom.
• Illustrations and photographs according to journal specifications.
• Legends for illustrations, figures, and photographs on separate pages.
• ORCID number for all authors.
• Source of funding.
• Authors’ contributions to the work.
• Conflict of interest.

Updated: March 2022