‘Journal of Sexual and Mental Health’ (JSMH) is an official journal of Polish Society for Sexual Medicine.

In June 2022, the JSMH officially replaced 'Seksuologia Polska', at the same time becoming an English-language journal. We request submissions of papers in English. Articles in Polish will not be considered as being in accordance with the guidelines.

It is a peer-reviewed scientific and educational yearbook, addressed to sexologists, psychiatrists and urologists, as well as to a wide range of doctors who encounter problems in the field of sexology in their daily practice. The journal publishes reviews, original articles, case studies, letter, book's reviews and Editorials. The reader will also find practical recommendations for the treatment of sexual dysfunction. Since 2019 it has been published as 'continuous publishing' in electronic version.

Journal follows editorial recommendations of 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 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/.

The review process

Manuscripts submitted for publication in ‘Journal of Sexual and Mental Health’ are evaluated as to whether they present new insights into the announced topic and are likely to contribute to progress in research or to changes in clinical practice. Received manuscripts are initially examined by the ‘Journal of Sexual and Mental Health’ editors. Manuscripts with insufficient priority for publication are rejected immediately. Incomplete submissions or manuscripts not prepared in the required style are sent back to the authors without scientific review. If manuscript is accepted for review, the authors will be notified in a letter giving the reference number for further correspondence with the Editorial Office.

Preparation of manuscripts

Articles should have the following structure:

Title page. The title page should carry the full title of the paper and a short title, consisting of not more than 40 characters including spaces, to be used as a running head (and which should be so identified).

The first name, middle initial and last name of each author should appear. If the work is to be attributed to a department or institution, its full name should be included. The name, address and telephone/fax number of the author responsible for correspondence concerning the manuscript should appear on the title page. The title page should include the affiliations of the authors and the sources of any support for the work in the form of grants, equipment or drugs.

Abstracts. An abstract of not more than 250 words should be provided on a separate page. Articles containing original data should include a structured abstract with the following four paragraphs, labeled: Introduction, Material and methods, Results, and Conclusions. The abstract should be followed by a list of 3–10 keywords or short phrases. When possible, the terms used should be from the Medical Subject Headings list of the Index Medicus.

Text. Full papers of an experimental or observational nature may be usefully divided into sections headed: Introduction, Material and methods, Results and Discussion.

Do not exceed the allowed space for a specific type of article:
original article — 3000 words,
review article — 6 000 words,
letters — 1000 words (not including abstract, tables and references),
clinical vignettes — 700 words, including title page, references, and figure legends.

Clinical vignettes

The goal of this category is to present brief reports of highly informative cases illustrated with interesting images accompanied by detailed legends. All applicable imaging techniques may be described in this category (ultrasound, X-ray and CT scans, biopsy and other). Text should be limited to 700 words, including title page, references, and figure legends. The number of references and authors is limited to five. Maximum one figure is allowed of no more than four panels each, labelled (a), (b), (c), (d). Additional figures and videos may be published online as supplementary data.

Case reports

While Editors strongly favor clinical vignettes, publication of standard size case reports (with manuscripts not exceeding 2000 words) may be exceptionally possible if they present rare and atypical clinical situations. It is expected that authors explain rarity of their submission in Cover Letter accompanying their submission. Additionally, authors may provide a separate note to Editors addressing this issue (see: Comment for the Editor in submission panel). Case reports not meeting these requirements will be rejected at desk.

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 numer of cited paper. Citations in the text should be put in square brackets.

PLEASE NOTE: References should 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(3): 441–451, doi: 10.1097/HJH.0b013e32831e13e5.).

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

Tables and illustrations. Written permission from publishers for any figure previously published must be submitted with the initial manuscript. All abbreviations used in tables and figures should be explained in each case below the table according to the formula: CT — computed tomography.

Sending the manuscript to the journal

The manuscripts are submitted electronically using the Electronic Manuscript Submission panel available on our website.

All manuscripts submitted should be accompanied by Cover Letter as well as by Author Statement Form (see respective links below) including signed confirmation that:

— work has not been published or submitted elsewhere as defined earlier in this document;

— manuscript has been approved by all co-authors (if any), as well as by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work has been carried out;

— author(s) agree(s) to the automatic and free copyright transfer to the Publisher, if and when the work is accepted for publication;

— all sources of financial support have been fully disclosed;

— author(s) confirm(s) that (s)he is (they are) familiar with and will observe the Editorial Policy and Information for Authors included in "Oncology in Clinical Practice";

— author(s) agree(s) to accept appropriate invoice from the Publisher in case color illustrations are implemented (100 USD per page).

Conflicts of interest

Authors of research articles should disclose at the time of submission any financial arrangement they may have with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company making a competing product. Such information will be held in confidence while the paper is under review and will not influence the editorial decision, but if the article is accepted for publication, the editors will usually discuss with the authors the manner in which such information is to be communicated to the reader.

Legal notice

Legal relations between the Publisher and the author(s) are in accordance with Polish law and with international conventions binding on Poland. Any potential conflict of interest will be dealt with by the local court specific to the Publisher.

Permissions. Materials previously published should be accompanied by written consent for reprinting both from the relevant. Publishers and the original authors. If it is possible to identify a patient from a case report, illustration or paper, etc. his/her written consent should be provided prior to publication.

Disclaimer. Every effort is made by the Publisher and Editorial Board to see that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinion or statement appear in the ‘Journal of Sexual and Mental Health’. However, they wish to make it clear that the data and opinions appearing in the articles and advertisements herein are the responsibility of the respective contributor, sponsor or advertiser. Accordingly, the Publisher and the Editorial Board accept no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any such inaccurate of misleading data, opinion or statement. Every effort is made to ensure that drug doses and other quantities are presented accurately. Nevertheless, readers are advised that methods and techniques involving drug usage and other treatments described in the Journal, should only be followed in conjunction with the drug or treatment manufacturer’s own documentation as published in the country of the reader.

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 of reagents or analytic tools, should be listed in the Acknowledgements. Ghostwriting and guest-authorship are forbidden. In case of detecting ghost written manuscripts, actions will be taken involving both the submitting authors and the participants involved.

Human and animal participants rights

All research involving human and animal participants and clinical trials must have the authors 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. For animal experimentation reported in the Journal, it is expected that investigators will have observed the Interdisciplinary Principles and Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research, Testing and Education issued by the New York Academy of Sciences Ad Hoc Committee on Animal Research. Adherence to these principles should be indicated in the text of manuscript.

Fees

There are no submission or processing charges.

Support files (attached as separate documents) that are obligatory

1. Author Statement
2. Cover Letter
3. Written permission for usage of photographs, illustrations, figures, or text from another source

Author statement

Article Information and Declarations

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

The authors may wish to express their thanks to those who contributed to the work but could not be co-authors of the manuscript. Sources of any support for the work in the form of grants, equipment, or drugs presented in the article should be listed as funding.

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 according to submission type

• Nonhuman artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies do not qualify for authorship. If such models or tools are used to create content or assist with manuscript preparation or writing, authors must take responsibility for the integrity of the content, especially that is has been generated without violating copyright law or rules of academic writing, in particular plagiarism-related ones.
• Authors should report the use of the above tools in the Methods section (if applicable) or in the Acknowledgments. Additionally, relevant note to the editors at the time of submission should be provided.
• Such reports should include: (i) a description of the content that was created or edited (ii) the name of the language model or tool, version, and extension numbers (iii) manufacturer, and (iv) where relevant, the query or prompt to create or assist with the development of content.
• Standard tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc. should not be reported.

(This policy has been inspired by JAMA’s instructions for authors describing the role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in creating content or assisting with writing or manuscript preparation).  

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Registration and login are required to submit items online and to check the status of current submissions.

In sending the manuscript the author(s) confirm(s) that (s)he has (they have) not previously submitted it to another journal (expect for abstracts of no more than 250 words) or published it elsewhere. The author(s) also agree(s), if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, to automatic and free transfer of copyright to the Publisher allowing for the publication and distribution of the material submitted in all available forms and fields of exploitation. The author(s) accept(s) that the manuscript will not be published elsewhere in any language without the written consent of the copyright holder, i.e. the Publisher.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.