Author Guidelines
Contributions to the Ghana Medical Journal should be in English only.
All submissions to the Ghana Medical Journal shall be through its online submission and review system at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/gma-gmj
CATEGORIES OF ARTICLES
The journal will consider manuscripts of the following categories for publication.
Original Research Article
Works publishable under this section include original research work of a suitable standard. Such work must be original, innovative, or contribute to established knowledge in a particular field. Manuscripts on all the medical specialties, including the basic, para-clinical and clinical sciences, will be considered. Short or preliminary reports on original works will be published under this section.
Special Articles
Review articles (including Systematic Reviews, Meta-analyses, Scoping Reviews, Narrative Reviews, and Rapid Reviews), manuscripts on special medical events, clinical notes, and clinical investigations will be considered for publication under this section. Review articles should cite original works that inform the formulation of a concept, theory, or hypothesis. Articles that draw attention to current medical practice must have ample support in the form of published observations by other authors and the author’s research findings.
Case Report
A new description of a clinical condition or case highlighting important practice or management issues will be considered for publication under this section. Case reports based on occurrence or management in a resource-poor setting must demonstrate innovation. Contributors should provide ample evidence supporting their claims. Authors should be individuals directly responsible for the patient's clinical care, and no more than five should be included.
Case series
A collection of cases highlighting particular trends or problems in clinical practice is also acceptable. A collection of more than three (3) cases will be considered research and will require ethical review and approval.
A literature review as part of a case report will not be considered for publication.
Correspondence
Correspondence on articles published in the journal shall be entertained. Such correspondence must reach the editor not more than three months after the publication of an article. The correspondence may seek further clarification on a published article.
The author(s) whose article has attracted correspondence from readers will be contacted for their comments, and the response and correspondence on published articles will be published together.
Supplements or Special Issues
The Journal may consider producing a supplement, special issue, or thematic collection on a defined topic relevant to health and medical practice. Approval of such requests is at the discretion of the Editorial Board. The Journal retains full and independent editorial control over all commissioned material, including peer review and publication decisions. All costs associated with the development and production of a special issue shall be borne by the requesting institution or sponsor. Funding arrangements shall not influence editorial decisions, and all content must meet the Journal’s standards for scientific quality, ethics, and transparency.
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LENGTH OF ARTICLES
Original Research Article
The total word count for the manuscript text for an original research manuscript should be up to 6000 words (Including text, figures, tables, list of references and panels). References should not exceed 30 in number. The structured abstract should not exceed 250 words.
Short or preliminary reports should not exceed 2000 words in total.
Special Article
The manuscript text word count for Review articles should not exceed 7000 words, including tables, panels and illustrations. The Abstract should not exceed 250 words. References should not be more than 40. Manuscripts on special medical events should not exceed 2000 words, including Figures, Tables and References.
Case Report
A case report manuscript text should not exceed 2000 words, including figures, tables and references. The Abstract should not exceed 250 words. References should not exceed 10 in number. Case reports with a literature review will not be considered.
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PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPT
Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the current edition of the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations) at ICMJE | Recommendations.
The above reference also includes guidelines on tables and figures, units, and abbreviations. Formats for reporting reviews and clinical trials should follow the EQUATOR Network guidelines (https://www.equator-network.org). Consult the journal’s policies on the use of artificial intelligence tools in the preparation of manuscripts.
All manuscripts should be written in English (UK) using Microsoft Word, with the .doc or .docx extension, in A4 format, with left, right, top, and bottom margins of 2.5cm.
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MANUSCRIPT FORMATS
Original research articles, including short reports, must have the following Sections: Title, Running title, Summary, Keywords, Source of funding for the work, Introduction, Methods(including Materials/Participants, Study design, Sample size determination, Sampling and Randomisation, Data collection, management and analysis/calculations, Research Ethics Committee approval, Informed consent), Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. This file is submitted as the Main document (It must be free of any information relating to authors’ names, institutional contact information and Acknowledgements).
All review articles must follow internationally accepted reporting guidelines, such as PRISMA, and be registered with recognised registries, such as PROSPERO or OSF.
Manuscripts on clinical trials must follow CONSORT guidelines and be registered with a recognised clinical trials registry.
Case reports and articles on medical events should follow EQUATOR-Network guidelines and format.
Authors should be guided by the journal’s policies on (1) the use of artificial intelligence in scholarly publications, (2) the ethical use of secondary data, and (3) the use of online tools for data collection (see below) when performing their study and preparing their manuscript.
Title
The title of each manuscript should not have more than 20 words or 100 characters and should clearly express the work’s aims. The title should be in sentence case. Titles should not be framed as a question and should not include a description of the method as an extension (after a colon), except for manuscripts on clinical trials.
Names of Authors, Academic Qualifications, Titles
The principal author’s name should appear first, followed by other authors. The names of the authors should be stated in the format [First name] [Middle name initial] and [Surname]. The title, running title, name(s) of the author(s), institutional address (es) of the author(s), name and e-mail address of the corresponding author, conflict of interest statement and the contribution of each author to the work should be provided for all manuscripts and submitted as a separate file (Supplementary File). This information should be in the separate file (Supplementary file) and uploaded with the manuscript.
Summary
The summary should contain no more than 250 words and must be structured. The summary should state: Objectives: This should provide a clear statement of the study's main aim and the major hypothesis or research question.
Design: Describe the study design (observational or analytical), indicating such features as pre-post, retrospective, randomisation, placebo-controlled, case-control, and cross-sectional.
Setting: include the level of health care, clinical department, community or groups, and number of participating centres;
Participants: Who, how selected, how many entering and completing the study;
Interventions: What, how, for how long;
Main outcome measures: Those planned in protocol, those finally measured (if different, explain why). These should be measured variables.
Results: Main results with levels of significance and 95% confidence intervals as appropriate, and guidelines or
Conclusions: Primary conclusions and their implications. Suggest areas for further research if appropriate. Recommendations and study limitations should not be part of the conclusions.
Modifications of this structure may be used for a Special Article as recommended by recognised reporting guidelines or formats.
Keywords
These should include words that emphasise the research's theme or central point. Keywords should, as far as possible, be selected from Medline's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) list. A maximum of five (5) keywords should be listed.
Running Title
Where the title of the manuscript is lengthy, the running title may take a shortened form to reflect the paper’s main objectives. However, no running title is required if the title is short, for instance, if it does not exceed four words. The running title should not exceed five words or 30 characters, arranged consecutively. A hyphen is counted as one character.
References
Authors should provide references to original research sources. Authors should avoid citing articles in predatory journals. References to pre-prints must be indicated. Personal communications should be stated only in the text and with the permission of the individual referred to and the date of the communication.
The number of references should be kept to a minimum. A maximum of ten (10) references for Case Reports, thirty (30) for Original Research manuscripts, five (5) for Short Reports and Medical Events, and forty-five (40) for Review manuscripts.
The references should be numbered consecutively as they occur in the text. Identify references in the text, tables and legends by Arabic numerals placed in superscript. When the citation is at the end of a sentence, it should be placed after the ‘full stop’. References cited must be relevant and appropriate.
The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the MEDLINE style (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals).
References must follow the ICMJE recommendations (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/. Authors are responsible for ensuring that references are stated accurately. The titles of journals and books in the listed references should be in italics.
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RESEARCH INTEGRITY/ETHICS POLICY
Originality of Articles
Manuscripts submitted to the Ghana Medical Journal must be original works. Submissions must be accompanied by a written declaration that the materials have not been submitted for publication or published in another journal, either in part or in full. Manuscripts based on published academic dissertations must be declared with an indication of the academic repository. The journal will not consider papers that have been posted on preprint servers prior to submission.
Authorship
Authors must be individuals who made a substantial intellectual contribution and are responsible for the submitted work. The Ghana Medical Journal follows the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). All authors must meet the four ICMJE criteria:
Participation in the development or design of the study, as well as data collection, analysis, and interpretation
Drafting or revising the manuscript for significant intellectual content.
Final approval of the version for publication.
Commitment to taking responsibility for all aspects of the study, including ensuring that questions about accuracy or integrity are adequately handled.
Individuals who do not fit the authorship criteria, such as those who provide technical assistance, statistical advice, or administrative help, should be acknowledged. Academic supervisors and department heads may be acknowledged if they have made identifiable intellectual contributions, such as directing the study design, advising on methodological decisions, assisting with data interpretation, or critically evaluating the publication.
The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all listed authors meet the criteria for authorship and that no qualified contributors are left out. All listed authors must sign the submission letter. The Supplementary file must include information on the role of each author in the research being reported. Requests for changes to authorship after submission must be recorded in writing and authorised by all authors. Disputed authorship will be handled using COPE principles.
Under no circumstances will the Journal allow honorary, courtesy, or gift authorship. The Journal may seek clarification if necessary.
Ethics Approval and Oversight
The Ghana Medical Journal promotes the highest standards of research integrity and the protection of human participants. The Declaration of Helsinki and all applicable national legislation must be followed when conducting research. Manuscripts involving human participants, human data, human biological materials (including original research studies, clinical trials, clinical studies, and case series), or animals must follow institutional, national and internationally recognised ethical guidelines. Authors must ensure that their research protocol has been reviewed and approved by an appropriate ethics committee before data collection commences. Retrospective approvals are not accepted.
Manuscripts must state the name of the approving Research Ethics Committee (REC)/Institutional Review Board (IRB), the approval number, and the date of approval. Approval must be obtained before data collection. The journal accepts approvals only from formally constituted and independent RECs/IRBs recognised by a national regulatory authority, a university, hospital, or research institution, or an internationally accredited body. The journal may request copies of approval letters for verification.
Ethical approvals are required from institutions where data collection or participant engagement took place when studies involve authors from multiple institutions. For multi-country research, authors must provide local ethics approval from each country involved, unless national laws permit reliance on a centralised or single REC/IRB. Reliance agreements must be documented.
All manuscripts must include a clear ethics statement summarising approvals, consent procedures, and compliance with relevant guidelines. Authors must confirm they obtained informed consent from all participants or that an REC/IRB formally granted a waiver.
Manuscripts with inadequate or unverifiable ethical oversight will be rejected. Suspected ethical misconduct will be reported to the relevant authorities or institutions.
Conflict of Interest
Authors, reviewers, and guest editors must disclose specific information relating to any financial relationship they may have with a sponsoring organisation and any interest that the organisation presents, as well as any for-profit product discussed or implied in the text of the manuscript. Helpful guidelines related to disclosure statements have been published by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (see http://www.icmje.org/#conflicts).
Scientific Misconduct and Ethical Standards
Scientific misconduct is related to the fabrication or falsification of data and plagiarism. Breaches of publication ethics include duplicate publication, misrepresentation of author contributions, and failure to disclose potential financial conflicts of interest. Authors are responsible for the correctness of their work and the quality of data.
The journal reserves the right to notify the head of the sponsoring institution and the funding body of scientific misconduct or breaches of publication ethics discovered while processing a manuscript or after publication, for investigation. The GMJ will not be involved in the investigation or make determinations of misconduct. The Editor-in-Chief will notify the authors of the intention to report the suspicion of research misconduct or breach of publication ethics.
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Correspondence
All correspondence should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief, Ghana Medical Journal, P. O. Box 1596, Accra, Ghana. Send e-mail correspondence to editor@ghanamedj.org
Peer Review
Apart from correspondence and invited editorials, all submissions will be peer-reviewed.
The journal uses double-blind peer review, and manuscripts should be anonymised for this purpose. Authors should submit the full manuscript without their names, institutional affiliations and acknowledgements. There should also be no headers or footers. This document should be uploaded as the Main document/file.
A second file containing the Title, author information and affiliation, running title, the role of authors, acknowledgement and conflict of interest statement should be uploaded as a Supplementary file.
All manuscripts are subject to a preliminary editorial review to ensure their acceptability. Manuscripts that do not conform to the requirements of this journal shall be rejected or returned to the author(s). Returned manuscripts may be accepted for consideration if they are modified to an acceptable form.
Manuscripts that are considered appropriate are reviewed by external peers using a double-blind approach. Generally, each submission is sent to two experts in the manuscript's subject area for peer review. Peer reviewers are expected to disclose any potential conflict of interest. Additional reviewers may be used if the peer review decisions do not agree. Manuscripts may also be sent to statisticians to review that aspect of the study. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on all manuscripts guided by the peer reviewers and the Editors.
Appeals
Where authors disagree with a review decision, the Editor-in-Chief will have the decision reviewed by another expert. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision.
Cover Letter or Submission Letter
The letter submitting the manuscript to the Editor-in-Chief should be on official institutional letterhead and signed by ALL authors.
Reprints
There shall be no reprints, as published articles may be freely downloaded from the journal website, AJOL, PubMed Central,
Frequency of Publishing
The Ghana Medical Journal is published quarterly online and in print: March, June, September and December. The publication of Special Issues or Supplements follows the same timelines.
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ARTICLE PROCESSING CHARGES
Effective the 1st of March 2026, the Ghana Medical Journal is introducing a tiered Article Processing Charge (APC) model to sustain its open-access publishing. The APC applied to an accepted manuscript is determined by the institutional affiliation of the corresponding author at the time of submission:
Ghana Medical Association (GMA) Members in good standing: $0
Low- and Middle-Income Country (non-GMA) Authors: $150
High-Income Country Authors: $300
The World Bank's definitions of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) and high-income countries (HIC) will apply.
Waivers remain available, especially for early-career researchers and postgraduate trainees.
Our goal is simple: keep the journal accessible, sustainable, and globally competitive.
Corresponding authors will indicate their willingness to pay the APC at the time of submitting the manuscript.
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SUBMISSION PREPARATION CHECKLIST FOR ANONYMOUS REVIEW
As part of the submission process, authors must check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items; submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be rejected or returned to the authors.
The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission files are in Microsoft Word document file format.
The text is single-spaced and uses a 10-point Times New Roman regular font. All illustrations, figures, and tables must be placed in line with the text at the appropriate points rather than at the end of the text or as separate files.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements in the Guide for Authors.
If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions for ensuring a blind review have been followed.
Author names should be First Name Middle Initial Surname (John B. Doe). Do not add titles and qualifications.
Give the full institutional address of each author, including city and country.
Provide information on Funding for the study.
Make sure Keywords are consistent with Medline MeSH terms.
Research Ethics Approval: All research manuscripts should indicate the name, institution, reference number and date of ethical approvals obtained for the study protocol. For studies involving human participants, indicate how informed consent was obtained.
Authors must obtain written informed consent from patients (or a guardian) when submitting Case Report manuscripts. Ensure that the patient's personal information is appropriately anonymised. The consent document must be uploaded with the manuscript.
Check citations in the text (Arabic numeral in superscript) 1 and ensure that citations at the end of a sentence are placed after the full stop, NOT before it. References should NOT be in parentheses (), [ ] or underlined _. More than one citation should be separated by commas (,) like this1,2 (Note the spacing). If bibliographic software is used to generate the list of references, make sure they are not placed as footnotes or endnotes.
Check that the list of references is consistent with the citations and that the Journal names are in italics and as abbreviated as in Medline. The format is: Authors Title Journal Name Year; Volume (issue): pages, article digital object identifier (doi). Where available, URLs for the references may be provided.
Internet references should indicate the date of accession.
References to unpublished communications should be kept in the text and not listed in the list of references.
Tables should contain information relevant to findings and not a long list of frequency data. Tables should be constructed using the Microsoft Excel Table format or Microsoft Word in columns and rows. Titles or legends to Tables should be placed before the Table and should be informative. Tables showing frequency data should present the data as n (%) in one column. Data should NOT be separated with Tabs or spaces. Do not put the legend/title of the Table in the first row. Avoid putting Notes in the bottom rows of the Table.
Figures should be clearly labelled and have appropriate captions. The caption should be in full, “Figure” not “Fig”. Pie charts containing fewer than 4 variables should be reported in words in the text. Give Figures separate legends. Do NOT include the legend or title in the Figure. The Label or the Title of the Figure should be placed below the Figure.
Clinical and radiological images should be data-size minimised and presented in JPEG format. They should be clear and sharp. Authors must ensure that patient information in radiological images is properly anonymised.
Images from other or previously published sources should have the permission of the original publisher or author to reproduce or alter them. The figure legend must credit the original source. This credit should be accompanied by a letter indicating that permission to reproduce the image has been granted to the author(s). This letter should be uploaded as a supplementary file during submission.
See also Policies on Manuscript Preparation
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OPEN ACCESS LICENCE NOTICE
The Ghana Medical Journal is an Open Access journal and applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to articles published in the Ghana Medical Journal. By submitting your paper for publication in GMJ, you agree to have the CC BY license applied to your work. This licence lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/). This facilitates freedom in re-use and also ensures that GMJ content can be mined without barriers for the needs of research.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Authors will retain copyright to articles submitted to the GMJ if accepted for publication and published. All authors must sign an Author Agreement form detailing the agreement with the journal before the article is published.
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PRIVACY STATEMENT
The Ghana Medical Journal is committed to protecting the privacy of users of its website and manuscript submission system. Users' names, personal particulars and email addresses will not be made available to third parties without the user’s permission or due process. By registering to use the submission system, users consent to receive communications from the Ghana Medical Journal. Queries regarding privacy may be directed to the editor@ghanamedj.org.
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POLICIES ON MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION
POLICY ON ETHICAL USE OF SECONDARY DATA
This policy establishes the ethical and reporting standards for articles that use secondary data from human participants. This assures that all analyses, including those using clinical records, surveys, registries, or administrative datasets, fulfil international standards for research integrity and subject protection.
The policy covers all journal manuscripts involving Electronic Health Records (HER), Patient case notes, Imaging, pharmaceutical, laboratory, or administrative data; National surveys (DHS, MICS, STEPS, census); International surveys (WHO SAGE, Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS)); Disease and surveillance databases, Google Trends and Digital Trace Data, and any participant-derived dataset.
The fundamental ethics underlying this policy is that any research that analyses human participant data must be ethical, regardless of the data source, its level of identifiability, or its public accessibility. The objective and nature of the research dictate ethical monitoring, not the dataset's origin. All manuscripts must show ethical oversight by providing either Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Research Ethics Review Committee permission or exemption. The data custodian's official confirmation of ethical permission for the first data gathering, anonymisation methods, and circumstances for secondary analysis.
Authors cannot claim ethics approval is “not required”. Authors must indicate that consent was sought during data collection, or the IRB waived consent, or consent is invalid due to anonymity.
Manuscripts must demonstrate that each dataset was anonymised before analysis, that the document contains no identifying information, and that data use agreements were honoured. Authors must provide a transparent account of the origin and properties of the dataset, survey sampling, weighting, harmonisation, inclusion and exclusion criterion and dataset access procedures
EHR studies should adhere to CODE-EHR reporting guidelines.1-3
References (Accessed 25 January 2026)
CODE-EHR checklist_PDFversion.pdf
Manuscripts without ethical documentation or non-compliance with this policy may lead to rejection or notification to the author's institution or ethics board.
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POLICY ON THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS
AI use is restricted to language refinement and formatting assistance only and must be fully disclosed.
Guidance on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools in Manuscript Preparation
The Ghana Medical Journal recognises that artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including large language models and machine learning applications, are increasingly used in scholarly work. Authors are reminded that such tools cannot be listed as authors and bear no responsibility for the integrity of a manuscript. (GMJ subscribes to the position of the African Journal Partnership Program journals Y Wright, C., Lartey, M., Khomsi, K., Peres, F., Yilma, D., Kigera, J., Flanagin, A., Gbakima, A., Ofori-Adjei, D., Kiswaya Ernest, S., Sidibé, S., Togo, A., & S. Muula, A. (2024). The African Journal Partnership Program’s guidance on the use of AI in scholarly publishing. Ghana Medical Journal, 58(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.4314/gmj.v58i1.1)
Transparency: Authors are required to provide full disclosure of any use of AI tools during manuscript preparation. Disclosure must be made in the Methods or Acknowledgements section.
Permitted Use: The application of AI shall be limited to language refinement and formatting assistance. AI must not be used to generate original scholarly content, analyse data, or formulate interpretations or conclusions.
Accountability: The responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, and originality of all submitted material rests solely with the authors.
Ethical Use: AI tools must not be used to fabricate data, references, or images. Any detected misuse will be considered a breach of publication ethics.
Confidentiality: Authors must not use AI tools to process confidential or unpublished data (including peer review reports or patient information).
Sanctions: Non-disclosure or inappropriate use of AI may constitute grounds for rejection or subsequent retraction of the manuscript.
Required Disclosure Statement:
“Portions of this manuscript were assisted by [name of AI tool], which was used for language refinement and formatting only. The authors have reviewed and verified all content for accuracy, integrity, and originality.”
By submitting a manuscript, authors affirm that they have critically reviewed and verified all content, regardless of whether AI tools were employed.
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USE OF ONLINE PLATFORMS AND TOOLS FOR DATA COLLECTION
Studies that use online platforms, digital survey tools, or web-based questionnaires for data collection must ensure scientific rigour, ethical compliance, and transparency. Such studies must receive prior approval from a recognised institutional ethics review committee/board.
Authors are encouraged to consult and adhere to established reporting guidelines, such as those available through EQUATOR, such as CHERRIES Improving the quality of Web surveys: the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) | EQUATOR Network, for internet surveys, to ensure rigorous and transparent reporting in manuscripts involving online data collection.
Authors can also refer to consensus-based checklists, such as CROSS (Consensus-based Checklist for Reporting of Survey Studies), and to methodological literature that emphasises transparency in survey design, recruitment, data quality, and evidence of validity.
Informed Consent for Collecting Data Online
Authors must demonstrate that they followed accepted ethical standards and obtained explicit informed consent from participants before collecting data for studies involving online tools. Participants must receive a clear digital information sheet that explains the study's purpose, procedures, possible risks and benefits, how their responses will be kept private and secure, and how they will be used in scientific publications.
Online survey tools must include a mandatory consent step that requires users to agree before submitting their answers.
Manuscripts should make it clear that informed consent was given and explain how it was done.
Submissions that lack sufficient evidence of the consent process won't be considered for publication.
Copyright Notice
Articles published in the Ghana Medical Journal may not be published elsewhere without the consent of the publishers. Request for consent for reproduction of material published in the Ghana Medical Journal should be addressed to the Editor-in-Chief. The publisher of this Journal reserves the right of copyright of all articles published in the Journal. It should also be understood by all authors that articles approved for publication in the journal are also deemed for publication online by the publisher.
Ghana Medical Journal is an Open Access journal and applies the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (Creative Commons Attribution License) 4.0 International. See details on the Creative Commons website (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) to articles and other content published in the Journal.
