Journal follows editorial recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) (available at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/). 

Via Medica strongly recommends journal editors to adhere to the principles of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), particularly to deal with acts of ethical misconduct. For more information Authors, Readers and Editors may visit the COPE website: http://publicationethics.org/.

This educational journal publishes papers in full text in English.

From January 1, 2023, Forum Dermatologicum is published in English and the Editorial Office accepts only manuscripts in English. The Editors may undertake translating articles into English only in exceptional circumstances.

All manuscripts together with supplementary files (if applicable) should be submitted online at journals@viamedica.pl. The submission and review process is fully electronic and submissions by e-mail or postal mail will not be accepted.

All research involving human participants and clinical trials must have the author's institutional review board/local ethical committee approval. Authors are required to include in the Methods section a brief statement identifying the committee approving the experiments. All experiments involving humans must have been conducted according to the principles stated in the Declaration of Helsinki. Authors are obliged to include a declaration confirming that informed consent was obtained from all participants. Data allowing the identification of patients is not acceptable. For animal experimentation reported in the Journal, Editor will evaluate the methods section. In case of any unethical conduct, manuscript will be immediately rejected.

The Journal publishes the following types of peer-reviewed articles:

1. Editorials
2. Original research papers,
3. Review articles,
4. Case reports
5. Letters to the Editors
6. Other— rapid communication articles, conference materials (after earlier agreement with Editors)

Manuscripts should be written in simple, concise and grammatical English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these), within the size limits specified for each type of article, prepared according to the guidelines below. The main text of the manuscript should be written in a standard PC-compatible word processing program (e.g., Microsoft Word) using Times New Roman font size 12, single-spaced throughout and submit as .doc/.docx or .rtf file. The text must be provided unjustified and auto-hyphenation must be inactivated. Greek and other special characters may be used only by inserting in the text as ″Symbol″ (and not by using ″symbol″ font which may be lost during subsequent file processing. It is advised not to underline the text and avoid footnotes. When essential, footnotes are numbered consecutively and typed at the foot of the appropriate page. All dimensions and measurements must be specified in the metric system. Particular attention needs to be paid to the selection of appropriate analysis of data and the results of statistical tests should be incorporated in the results section. Abbreviations, if used, should be defined in brackets on their first appearance in the text. The abbreviations that are not accepted by the international groups of experts, should be avoided.

The articles should be prepared within the following limits (including figures and tables)

Original articles: 16 pages

Review articles: 20 pages

Case studies: 10 pages

Letters to the editors: 5 pages

(1800 characters per page)

Original papers should be written in grammatical English. Manuscripts insufficient in proper English will not be considered for rewiev. Editorial Board as well as Publisher reserve the rights to put the manuscript into acceptable form.

Articles should be organized into the following sections:

Original articles: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion

Conclusions, Acknowledgements, References.

Review articles: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Main text, divided into subheadings, Acknowledgements, References.

Case studies: Title page, Abstract, Case description, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References.

Letters to the Editors: Title page, Main text, Acknowledgements, References.

Sections of manuscript

Title page: The title page should provide the manuscript title and running title of no more than 80 characters, excluding spaces; full names of all authors and their institutional addresses; name, address, telephone, fax and email of the corresponding author.

Abstract and key words: The abstract should be comprehensive but concise consisting of no more than 250 words and should be structured to give a brief background to the study, main methods, results of the study, and conclusions. The abstract should be followed by a list of 3-5 carefully chosen keywords. Only common abbreviations should be used in the abstract.

The introduction should present the state of knowledge up-to-date, the aim and the background of the studies and explain how original is the aim.

Methods should describe the investigated group, applied methods and statistical analysis. Experimental procedures should be given in sufficient detail to allow these to be replicated by other researchers. The source of the various materials used in the study should be given, where possible.

Results should be presented very in a logical fashion, with no need for the reader to solve. One should remember that curves and columns are more readable than tables or results presented in plain text.

Discussion: The obtained results should be discussed in the light of any previous research and available literature. In discussion, one should not repeat the results presented in the results section.

Conclusions: should refer to the aims of the study and be presented in precise form, preferably in a bulleted form.

Acknowledgements: The authors should first acknowledge the sources of any support for the work in the form of grants, equipment, or drugs presented in their article followed by any personal credits.

Statement of competing interests: Include a detailed disclosure of any competing interests (financial or others) that may have affected the research or the conclusions drawn from the study. If none, state the authors report no competing interests′.

List of abbreviations: Authors should define all non-standard abbreviations on their first appearance in the text as well as provide a list. Standard abbreviations need not be included in the list.

References: Authors must ensure that all references are cited accurately and those in the main text body are also included in the list of references and vice versa. Standard abbreviations should be used for journal names. References older than ten years should only be cited if absolutely necessary. The style of references is that of Index Medicus/MEDLINE (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/policy/cit_format.html):

The references should list all the bibliographical sources cited in the text, in the order of their appearance. The following should be provided: (a) consecutive number; (b) surname(s) of the author(s) along with the first letter of the first name(s) (in the case of more than 3 authors the surnames of the first three authors should be provided and followed by ‘et al.’); (c) title of the paper, journal name using the applicable abbreviations (see Index Medicus), year, volume, issue number, first and last pages; for separate books: title and publisher, place and year of publication; (d) DOI numbers of cited paper. Citations in the text should be put in square brackets.

(i) Journals:

Madej A, Reich A, Orda A, Szepietowski JC. Expression of vascular adhesion protein-1 in atopic eczema. Int Arch Allergy Immunol 2006; 139: 114-21

Phan NQ, Blome C, Fritz F i wsp. Assessment of pruritus intensity: a prospective study on validity and reliability of the Visual Analogue Scale, Numerical Rating Scale and Verbal Rating Scale in 471 patients with chronic pruritus. Acta Derm Venereol 2012; 92: 502-7

(ii) Books:

List consecutive reference number, last name and initial(s) of the author(s)/editor(s), title, the editor, place and year of publication. Reference to a specific chapter should include last name and initials of its author(s), chapter title, last name and initials of the book author(s)/editor(s), title, the editor, place and year of publication and pages. Book reference with different authors and editor: Rosen MR. Principles of cardiac electrophysiology. In: Kelley WN ed. Internal medicine. J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia 1992: 90-95. Book reference with identical author and editor: Braunwald E. Heart disease. W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia 1992: 393-418.

More detailed examples can be found at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/uniform_requirements.html

PLEASE NOTE: Authors are encouraged to include DOI numbers of the cited papers (if applicable) – it will enable the references to be linked out directly to proper websites. (e.g. Redon J, Cifkova R, Laurent S et al. Mechanisms of hypertension in the cardiometabolic syndrome. J Hypertens, 2009; 27: 441–451. doi: 10.1097/HJH.0b013e32831e13e5.).

Figure legends: Figure legends should be comprehensive but concise and should not duplicate information provided in the text of the article. The figure title should be given as the first line of the legend. Figures and photos should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals. The authors should submit an electronic version of the figures included at the end of the manuscript text or separate files. Every figure and photo should be titled and pointed where it should appear in the main text. Figures should be submitted in the following formats: TIF at the standard resolutions (i.e. 300 dpi for photos, 600 dpi for line art), JPG, EPS, CDR, and AI sized at the final print size. Other figure formats may be supported, but DO NOT USE PDF, PPT, or PS files for either text or figures, as they cannot be used for typesetting purposes. 

Figures and Tables: No specific feature within an image may be modified. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or colour balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and if they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds. The editors may request the original data from the authors for comparison with the prepared figures.

Tables should be prepared with the same skill, thought, and care as the text. They are best prepared in a text editor as they will be copyedited in Word and consecutively numbered (Table 4, Table 5, etc.). They must not be larger than a single page and be prepared in portrait orientation. Tables should complement and not repeat information provided in the main text body. Each table should be given on a separate page with a brief title; the table number and title appear above the table text. All table columns must have a heading and any abbreviations should be explained in footnotes.

DO NOT embed figures, tables or any other non-textual features in the main text. Figures and tables may be added at the end of the manuscript text or as separate, supplementary files

Authorship

All collaborators who have made significant and substantial contributions to a study are considered coauthors. The nature and level of contribution of all authors of accepted manuscripts must be indicated, i.e. conception, design, execution and interpretation of the data being published, wrote the paper. An author may list more than one contribution, and more than one author may have contributed to the same aspect of the work. Other contributions to the work, such as providing reagents or analytic tools, should be listed in the Acknowledgements. Ghostwriting and guest authorship are forbidden. In the case of detecting ghostwritten manuscripts, their actions will be taken involving both the submitting authors and the participants involved. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all authors for the submission of each version of the paper and any change in authorship. Submission of a paper that has not been approved by all authors may result in immediate rejection. Due to the release from the responsibilities to the third parties, the corresponding author is required to return to the Publisher a signed copy of the ‘Cover Letter’ together with the manuscript.  All authors must agree to the conditions of publication, however, the final responsibility for this information lay on the author submitting the manuscript.

Author statement

These specific elements should be provided in dedicated sections of the submission panel; they are available according to the type of article. Please, do not include these elements in the main text. More information on particular items is provided in the Author Guidelines panel.

Acknowledgments

If applicable, please provide any acknowledgments for the conduct of the study and/or support for manuscript preparation.

Author contributions

Please, describe the contribution of all co-authors to the final manuscript.

Funding

Please, highlight any funding that you may have received for the reported research or state that no funding, grants, or other support was received.

Availability of data and materials

Please, indicate that original contributions presented in the study are included in the article (and as Supplementary Material, if applicable) and that further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Please, if applicable state that the study was reviewed and approved by an Ethics Committee and that patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. If not applicable, please explain why ethical approval and/or consent were not required.

Competing interests

Any possible conflicts of interest regarding the submitted article should be described for each author, or authors should declare they have no conflict of interest related to the submitted manuscript.

Supplementary Material

If applicable: the Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: (link will be provided by an Editor).

Table I. Elements of

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