Guidelines for authors

Manuscripts should be submitted to Investigación en Discapacidad using the journal's Editorial System, submissions using other means will not be accepted.

Investigación en Discapacidad receives manuscripts submitted by authors with specialties or subjects related to any aspect of disability research. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to send manuscripts to peer-review and define their acceptance or rejection according to the consensus of the Editorial Team.

Submissions to Investigación en Discapacidad should not have been previously published in any language or format, except as a Conference Abstract or an Academic Thesis, nor have been simultaneoulsy submitted to any other journal. Any member of the research group may submit a manuscript on behalf of all authors, but communications with the journal will be carried out with the corresponding author only.

Please check out the journal's Aims and scope, Manuscript types, Submission requirements, Copyright policy, Editorial policy, Peer-review policy, Corrections and retractions policy, Ethics statement, and Privacy statement before submitting your manuscript.

Pre-submission inquiries

Investigación en Discapacidad does not accept pre-submission inquiries. Authors are encouraged to thoroughly review the journal’s scope, guidelines, and recent publications to ensure the suitability of their manuscripts for submission. All manuscripts must be submitted through the online submission system for consideration.

Technical validation

Investigación en discapacidad uses an artificial intelligence tool to assess submissions' compliance with journal's Guidelines and Policies. Authors are encouraged to apply this tool (free of charge, user account required) to their files before submission. This assessment is an estimation of compliance, additional changes may be requested after submission.

Language

The journal publishes manuscripts in either English or Spanish. Articles written in Spanish must provide an English version of the Abstracts, Title and Keywords. It is authors' responsibility to ensure that both the abstracts and the body of the manuscript are correctly written, with clear and precise writing in the corresponding language. It is recommended that all manuscripts be reviewed by a copyeditor with experience in biomedical scientific writing before submission to ensure the language quality. Investigación en Discapacidad does not offer translation services.

Suggested and opposed reviewers

Authors are encouraged to suggest five potential reviewers who are not closely related to them. They also may mention opposed reviewers. This information (reviewers names, affiliations and email addresses) may be included in the "Comments for the Editor" text box during submission. The Editorial Team will take into account these recommendations when inviting reviewers but may consider other reviewers as well.

Cover letter

All submissions must be accompanied by a Cover letter addressed to the Editor-in-chief, in which the scientific or clinical importance of the work and its contribution to knowledge in the field will be briefly described. The letter must be signed by the corresponding author, who will be responsible for communication with the journal throughout the editorial process.

Information page

To assure anonymity during the double-blind peer review, all information that may disclose the authors' identity should be included in a separate file. This includes names, affiliations, ORCID's, acknowledgements, funding declarations, and conflicts of interest declaration.

The Information page should also mention explicitly the name, affiliation, email, and postal address of the corresponding author, and the suggested Manuscript Type as well. Authors' contributions to the submitted study should also be described here using the CRediT taxonomy.

Authors must guarantee the anonymity of all files (and their metadata) intended for peer-review.

Authors list

Names, emails, and affiliations from all authors should appear in the Information page. It is authors' responsibility to assure that every person who meets criteria for authorship is listed as an author, and that every person listed as an author meets criteria for authorship. Contributors to the study who do not meet criteria for authorship should be mentioned in the Acknowledgements (see below). Recommendations by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors should be followed. 

No changes to the authors list will be made after submission acceptance for publication. This includes authors' names and affiliations. Minor corrections (i.e. typographical, orthographical) may be applied after acceptance if convincingly justified. See the journal's Corrections and retractions policy for further details.

Abstract

The Abstract may be structured or not, with a maximum extension of 250 words. Editorials. Expert Opinion and Letters to the Editor do not require an abstract. If the submission language is Spanish, the Abstract must be submitted in English as well (see Language section above). The Abstracts should not include references.

The Abstract must describe the relevance of the topic to the pathophysiology, treatment, understanding, technological developments, or any other perspective related to diseases or health conditions which might cause disability.

Keywords

All manuscript types (including Editorials, Letters to the Editor, and Conference Abstracts) should include 3-5 keywords. If the submission language is Spanish, Keywords must be submitted in English as well (see Language section above). MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms are preferred as keywords.

Main text

The main text for all manuscripts must have been previously anonymised. All data that could identify the authors must be eliminated from the Main text and included in the Information page.

Manuscripts must be submitted electronically as Microsoft Word files (.doc or .docx). The manuscript must be written double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font and 25 mm margins on all four sides. Pages should be numbered sequentially at the bottom right. Line numbers should be included.

Informed consent

Informed consent is required for all research involving human participants despite the study design (Case series and case reports, Original research, etc.). Consent must be obtained in a manner that respects the autonomy and dignity of participants, particularly considering the diverse needs of individuals with disabilities. Please revise the journal's Ethics statement for further details.

For research involving minors (individuals under 18 years of age), informed consent must be obtained from a parent or legal guardian. In addition, researchers should seek the assent of minors who are capable of providing it. Assent involves explaining the study in an age-appropriate manner and obtaining the minor's agreement to participate.

Participants must provide explicit consent for the use of their audio, video, or photographic materials. The consent form should include a section specifically addressing the use of multimedia materials, detailing the purpose, scope, and duration of use. Researchers must take measures to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of participants in multimedia materials. This may include blurring faces, altering voices, or using pseudonyms.

Authors submitting manuscripts to Investigación en Discapacidad must include a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants. This statement should be included in the Methods section of the manuscript.

Figures

Figures should be numbered consecutively using arabic numerals and be mentioned within the main text. A leyend for each submitted figure should be provided at the end of the main text.

Figure files must be in TIFF or JPEG format, with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi for photographs and 600 dpi for graphs or diagrams. Figures should be submitted as individual files, embedded figures in the text files are not accepted. Maximum file size is 10 Mb.

Color figures appear online only and are shown in black and white in the printed version of the journal.

Artificial intelligence tools

Authors must explicitly state within the manuscript whether they used any form of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology at any stage of the study, including but not limited to: study design, data collection and analysis, writing or revising the manuscript.

The name, version and vendor of the AI tools used should be clearly specified, as well as their specific role in the study described. Authors must ensure that the use of AI complies with applicable ethical and regulatory standards, and does not compromise the scientific integrity of the study.

If AI was used to generate or analyze data, the authors must carefully validate the results and take final responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of the information reported.

The use of AI does not relieve the authors of their responsibility to ensure that the study meets all ethical requirements, including approval by an ethics committee and obtaining informed consent when necessary. If the results or conclusions of the study depend substantially on AI technologies, the authors should discuss the limitations and possible biases arising from their use.

Tables

Tables should be numbered consecutively using arabic numerals, and mentioned within the main text. A leyend for each submitted Table should be provided at the end of the main text.

Tables must be elaborated using editable formats (Word and Excel preferred), and not as images, and embedded at the end of the main text.

References

References should follow the Vancouver style.

Conflicts of interest

Authors must declare any financial, personal, or professional relationships that could bias their work or that could be perceived as a potential conflict of interest. Conflicts of interest may be direct or indirect, and include but are not limited to: employment relationships, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patents or intellectual property registration, scholarships, and grants or funding.

If there is a Conflict of Interest, it must be specified in detail. Declaration of Conflicts of interest must be included in the Information page. Please consult the journal's Ethics statement for further details.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements may be considered at authors discretion. It is authors' responsibility to assure that every person who meets criteria for an acknowledgement is mentioned, and every person that is mentioned meets criteria for an acknowledgement. It is authors' responsibility to assure that every person acknowledged has given consent to be mentioned.

Recommendations by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors should be followed. This section should be included in the Information page (see above).

Funding

A declaration of Funding must be included in the Information page (see above). It is recommended to specify the role of the funders in the design of the study, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript and decision to publish.

If no funding was received, the following leyend must be included:

"The present study did not receive financial support from governmental, academic, commercial, or any other entities".

Data availability statement

Authors are strongly encouraged to make the research data on which their articles are based available by depositing them in discipline-specific or general public repositories. Authors should include a data availability statement in the manuscript, specifying where the data can be found and how to access it.

If data cannot be made public for reasons of confidentiality or privacy, authors should explain this in the data availability statement and describe the procedures for requesting access to the information. 

Reporting guidelines

Authors are strongly encouraged to apply appropriate Reporting Guidelines according to the study type submitted. Several of those Guidelines may be retrieved from the EQUATOR Network website. Some examples are listed below:

  • CONSORT 2010 Statement: updated guidelines for reporting parallel group randomised trials
  • The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies
  • The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews
  • SPIRIT 2013 Statement: Defining standard protocol items for clinical trials
  • STARD 2015: An Updated List of Essential Items for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies
  • The CARE Guidelines: Consensus-based Clinical Case Reporting Guideline Development
  • The AGREE Reporting Checklist: a tool to improve reporting of clinical practice guidelines
  • Standards for reporting qualitative research (SRQR): a synthesis of recommendations
  • The ARRIVE Guidelines 2.0: updated guidelines for reporting animal research
  • Transparent reporting of a multivariable prediction model for individual prognosis or diagnosis (TRIPOD): The TRIPOD statement
  • Gasparyan AY, et al. Writing a narrative biomedical review: considerations for authors, peer reviewers, and editors. Rheumatol Int. 2011;31(11):1409-1417.

When checklists are available for those guidelines, they should be properly filled and submitted as Supplementary files.

Similarity check and redundant publications

All manuscripts submitted to Investigación en Discapacidad will be subjected to similarity detection software as part of the initial review process.

If plagiarism or redundant publication is suspected at any stage of the review process or even after publication, the manuscript may be rejected and further action may be taken depending on the severity of the situation.

The Journal adheres to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to handle cases of plagiarism and redundant publication.

Copyright transfer

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors will be asked to sign a letter of transfer of copyright, which will be sent by the editor via email. The copyright holder will be the Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitación Luis Guillermo ibarra Ibarra.

The letter must be signed by the corresponding author on behalf of all listed authors. Investigación en discapacidad applies a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) to all published content. Please, revise the journal's Copyright policy for further details.