ISSN E: L- 2644-4003

Publication guidelines

Focus and scope

The SALUTA  is a publication in printed and digital format, published every six months. It has free access and has no charge for authors, financed and edited by the Universidad Metropolitana de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología (UMECIT) of the Republic of Panama.

Its Editorial Committee requires the originality of each manuscript submitted for consideration for publication, which are immediately and permanently available for easy reading and downloading.

The objective of the journal is to disseminate research, theoretical and empirical studies, as well as discussions and controversies that are being carried out in the field of health sciences.

SALUTA , starting in 2022, will be published in Spanish and English, that is, it will be a bilingual journal, in response to the institutional efforts of internationalization, visibility and dissemination of its contents.

Editorial policy

SALUTA  covers a broad scientific topic and publishes research articles (clinical, experimental, or social sciences related to the health area), review articles, innovative articles for practice and letters to the editor. It gives relevance to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed studies as well as those related to diagnostic and epidemiological studies.

Papers should be submitted through the journal's Open Journal System (OJS) platform (https://revistas.umecit.edu.pa/index.php/saluta  

The articles will be submitted to peer review process by specialists in the field, independent of both the editorial team and the authors. This process is anonymous and confidential. For this reason, the parties will not know the identities of the author and the reviewer, respectively, and the editorial team will oversee the correspondence between them.

The journal accepts articles in two languages, Spanish and English. In the case of articles in Spanish, titles, abstracts, and keywords are translated into the second language.

Ethical policies

All articles involving research on human subjects must adhere to the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki and other national and international bioethics regulations. The confidentiality and anonymity of the participants must be kept, so no data that allow their identification must be used.

The editors or members of the boards of the University's periodicals may request, at their own discretion or in accordance with the content of the publication, the opinion of the Ethics Committee of the University, in contents that justify it.

SALUTA will establish mechanisms and use specialized software to identify and prevent the publication of works where bad practices such as plagiarism and self-plagiarism, falsification of data, among others, are identified. In this aspect, the flow charts implemented by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, 2010) in its publication International Standards for editors and authors (https://publicationethics.org/) will be considered. Plagiarism and self-plagiarism are absolutely forbidden and

will be removed from the journal regardless of whether they were published or during the editorial process, and authors who violate these rules will be banned. 

Copyright:

Authors publishing in SALUTA agree to the following terms:

-Manuscripts submitted must be original and unpublished and must not be simultaneously in the process of publication in other journal, compilations, or any other means of publication.

-The content of the publications and the links suggested in them are the absolute responsibility of the authors and not of the UNIVERSIDAD METROPOLITANA DE EDUCACIÓN, CIENCIA Y TECNOLOGÍA (UMECIT) nor of the SALUTA journal. They are protected by international copyright laws as are the logos of UMECIT and SALUTA JOURNAL, hence their reproduction is strictly prohibited.

- The author authorizes the journal the right of reproduction, dissemination, and distribution under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license in different electronic formats.

 Guidelines for authors

1. Manuscripts should contain the following data of the author(s): name and surname(s), ORCID, institution where he/she carries out his/her academic activity, city, country, and electronic address (e-mail). The author's academic information (academic degrees) should also be indicated in the footnote.
2. Authors submit their manuscripts with the understanding that the work has not been previously published in print or electronic form and is not under consideration for publication in any medium. An electronic plagiarism detection system will be used; therefore, by submitting a manuscript, authors agree that their work may be subject to scrutiny for plagiarism of previously published works. Manuscripts that are not in the proper format will be returned to the authors for correction and resubmission before being considered for the refereeing process.
3. Papers should be submitted in Spanish or English, given the international nature of the journal. The abstract must be additionally translated into English if it is written in Spanish. The length should be between two hundred (200) and three hundred (300) words; it should also contain between three (3) and ten (10) keywords according to MeSH, DeCS or Unesco Thesaurus, which should also be translated into English on the abstract page. The accepted length will be between 10 and 20 pages (this criterion is flexible within certain limits), with a Times New Roman font, 11-point size.
4. The writing should use formal, simple, and direct language, avoiding as much as possible the use of unusual, rhetorical, or ambiguous expressions, as well as the excess and abuse of textual quotations. The paper should be submitted with reasonably acceptable writing, punctuation, spelling and typing. If the paper has problems of any kind, the pertinent observations will be made and it will be returned to the author for correction.
5. The document must be written in the third person or in the infinitive, except for works under the qualitative approach or written production that corresponds to works of divulgation or other knowledge, in which the total or partial writing in the first person will be allowed, according to the author's style.
6. In the main text, the excessive or inappropriate use of bold, italic, or cursive letters should be avoided, except for Latin terms and foreign words, which should appear in italic or italic letters.
7. The first time an abbreviation is used, it should be enclosed in parentheses; thereafter, only the abbreviation should be used.
8. If the paper contains tables, figures, or graphs, they should be numbered according to the order in which they appear in the text, with Arabic numerals, followed by a brief title. The source should be indicated at the end.
9. Citations and bibliographical references should be made in accordance with the VANCOUVER standards. Carefully observe that all references are marked, that the spelling of the authors' names corresponds and that the dates given in the text are the same as those given in the references.
10. This set of standards may present variations over time, therefore, the changes that are made in it, will be published on a date according to its implementation.
11. The editorial committee will always respect the theoretical orientation of the author. What will be evaluated is the coherence, originality, contribution to the discipline, clarity, and logic of the work.
12. Papers selected for publication will not receive financial or any other type of retribution. They will only receive a certificate of publication signed by the editor, if requested.

Types of scientific production in the journal:

SALUTA publishes research articles (clinical, experimental, or social sciences related to the health area), review articles, case presentations and letters to the editor.

The journal will also include analyses and opinions of nationally and internationally recognized experts on medical education. It will cover all levels of medical education: undergraduate, graduate, and continuing professional development, in order to analyze experiences and stimulate new currents of thought in the field of medical education.

Research articles:

They are productions with primary category such as: reports of empirical or epidemiological research, original and unpublished, which address problems of health, rehabilitation, psychology, or research in basic sciences in the area of health. Likewise, research that addresses health problems from the theories and methods of the social sciences in an interdisciplinary manner (history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural, science and gender studies).

Research developed from quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approaches are accepted. All manuscripts should make clear how the findings advance the understanding of the topic under study.

Research articles should have the following structure:

1. Main title of the manuscript in Spanish and English of up to 15 words.
2. Identification of the author(s) (See point 1 of the AUTHOR GUIDELINES).
3. Abstract in Spanish and English, written in the past tense, third person, and not to exceed 300 words.
4. Introduction, Objective, Method, Results (expressed quantitatively, qualitatively, or mixed, as applicable).
5. Conclusions.
6. Bibliographic references. The authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references. The style will be in accordance with Vancouver standards. It is suggested to consult http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/. The list of references should be 1.5 lines long and placed at the end of the manuscript. The numbering of bibliographic references should be in accordance with the order in which they are referred to in the manuscript (not in alphabetical order) with the number in superscript and without parentheses. Any unpublished sources and personal communications should not be included as references but should be noted in the text of the manuscript in parentheses at the end of the sentence they support.
7. It is essential that at the end of the Method section, a small section entitled "Ethical Considerations" is included, in which they should explain what concerns Informed Consent and indicate if any ethical protocol was followed in the institution where the study was carried out, as well as if all participants were aware of the purpose of the research and if their participation was voluntary. All work involving research involving human subjects should follow the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association and the authors should confirm, when necessary, that informed consent was obtained. Authors should seek approval from the appropriate body of their institution, such as Research or Ethics Committees, for health research. Care should be taken to ensure that there is no potential harm to learners or teachers involved in the work and that the anonymity of participants is guaranteed.

Review articles:

A manuscript whose purpose is to advance the understanding of a particular topic beyond a mere summary of the relevant literature. They are studies and critical analyses of recent and pertinent literature on a topic in the area of health, together with the

author's views on that topic. It must have an extensive bibliographic review of at least fifty (50) references.

Review articles should have the following structure:

1. Title of the manuscript in English and Spanish up to 15 words.
2. Full name of each author.
3. Institutional affiliation(s) of each author.
4. Contact information of the author responsible for the manuscript (e-mail, complete address, telephone and ORCID of the author(s)).
5. Abstract in Spanish and English, written in the past tense, third person and not to exceed 300 words. It should fully reflect the content of the manuscript.
6. Content of the manuscript
7. References should be at least fifty (50). Authors are responsible for their accuracy and completeness. The style should be in accordance with Vancouver standards. It is suggested to consult http://www. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/. The list of references should be 1.5 lines long and placed at the end of the manuscript. The numbering of bibliographic references should be according to the order referred to in the manuscript (not in alphabetical order) with superscript number. Any unpublished sources and personal communications should not be included as references but should be noted in the text of the manuscript in parentheses at the end of the sentence they support.
8. Regarding ethical considerations, follow the indications in point 9 of the section on original articles.

Innovation articles for practice.

This section may include manuscripts that present reflections (essays), experiences (case studies) or original, innovative and/or relevant proposals within the field of health that have marked or contributed in a clear and/or decisive way to changes in this discipline.

Letters to the editor:

Related to articles published in the journal or stories of general interest in the area of health. They are brief comments. The authors of articles that are the object of the commentary will have the right to reply. Up to 400 words, no more than five references and according to the Vancouver format (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7256/).

Submission preparation checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to indicate whether their article complies with the following elements: (If not, the article will be returned)

1.  The paper to be submitted is original and unpublished.
2. The article to be submitted has not been previously published, nor has it been previously submitted to another journal.
3. The article should be sent in Word format
4. The text complies with the bibliographic and style requirements indicated in the GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS (https://revistas.umecit.edu.pa/index.php/saluta/about/submissions), which can be found in the About the journal section.
5. The text should be double spaced, Times New Roman font, 11-point size; title in Spanish and English; abstract with a maximum length of 300 words and structured according to the type of manuscript; keywords (3 to 10) according to MeSH, DeCS or Unesco Thesaurus.
6. The text is structured according to the type of manuscript.
7. The bibliography is in VANCOUVER standard and the DOI number of the article has been added when available.

Privacy statement

Names and e-mail addresses entered in the journal will be used exclusively for the purposes stated by the journal and will not be available for any other purpose or to any other person.  The review process is double-blind, is anonymous, and the only person who knows the identities of both the author and the reviewer is the journal's editor, who is responsible for sending correspondence.

Arbitration and evaluation of papers

 The evaluation process applied to the articles submitted is as follows:

• SALUTA reviewers may be internal or external to the institution, national or international. They should not have conflicts of interest with the authors of the manuscripts. If there is any doubt in this regard, another reviewer will be sought. The names of authors and reviewers will remain anonymous during this process.
• Manuscripts received are initially read by the journal editor. Other editors may be involved if necessary (pre-arbitration phase).
• Manuscripts whose writing is not clear, whose information is not relevant or of interest to the journal's audience will be rejected at the pre-arbitration stage.
• If approved in the first stage, they will be sent to peer reviewers in the area for peer review. The review process is "double blind" so that the identities of authors and referees are not revealed to each other. The goal is to provide an initial editorial decision within 12 weeks.
• Accepted manuscripts will be edited according to the journal's style format and returned to the author for approval of the final version.
• Authors are solely responsible for the content of their research and the implications it may have from a legal point of view.
• The total time of the editorial process ranges from at least eight to 16 weeks. The detailed process is as follows:

1. The anonymous version of the manuscript is sent to two internal or external referees, selected by the Editor according to the subject matter.
2. The referees issue their opinion in the Refereeing Format of the journal which contains three sections: the first evaluates through a checklist the various elements of the manuscript according to the corresponding selection; the second is the comments and suggestions to the authors for each item of the manuscript (title, abstract, introduction, etc.); the third is the recommendation to the Editor for its probable publication: "Publishable without modifications"; "Publishable with modifications", "Not publishable".

1. Once the authors receive the results of the arbitration process, as well as the recommendations of the referees, they have 15 days to respond. If not sent within this period, the text will be evaluated as a new article, unless an extension has been requested.
2. The modified manuscripts are sent to the referees for a second review and issuance of the final opinion.
3. The Editor makes the final decision for publication or rejection. In case of publication dispute, the Editor requests a new arbitration or makes the decision.
4. The authors receive the final decision and a letter of acceptance of the article is sent to them.

Guidelines for submission of papers:

1. Papers should be submitted electronically by logging on to https://revistas.umecit.edu.pa/index.php/saluta/about/submissions and registering as reader and author. The system will give you the option to upload your article for possible publication.
2. Once the papers are received, an acknowledgement of receipt of the manuscript is sent via e-mail to the author.
3. The Editorial Committee then begins the review process, following the steps indicated in the section on "Arbitration and evaluation of papers".
4. The papers received in the journal will be refereed by national and/or international specialists of recognized professional trajectory in their respective fields of research. According to the evaluation rules, the referees should consider the following criteria: originality, novelty, relevance, internal organization and content of the work, clarity and coherence of the discourse, grammatical skills, theoretical and methodological foundation, analysis and interpretation of the results, timeliness and relevance of the sources consulted and contributions to knowledge.
5. The Editorial Committee reserves the right to verify compliance with editorial standards before initiating the arbitration process.