Writing for BJGP Open: research

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Research articles

Title

The title should be a clear description of the topic of the research and the methods and setting used for the study. It should not exceed 12 words. Dividing the title into two clauses may be helpful, for example 'Prevalence of problem gambling in young people: cross-sectional study in general practice'.

Authors

If you put your name to an article you must fulfil the standard requirements for authorship.

Abstract

All research articles should have a structured abstract of no more than 250 words. This should be set out with the following headings: Background, Aim, Design & setting, Method, Results, Conclusion, and Keywords. Please ensure that the most important results are fully reported and that the Conclusion is as specific as possible about the implications of your work for practice and research.

Keywords

You can include up to six keywords, which should be MeSH headings. Ensure that primary health care, family practice, or general practice are included where appropriate.

How this fits in

Summarise, in no more than four short sentences, what was previously known or believed on the topic and what this piece of research adds, particularly focusing on the relevance to clinicians.

Main text

Articles should follow the traditional format of Introduction, Method, Results, and Discussion. We recommend that the main text does not exceed 2500 words, excluding tables and figures as described below. Articles may be returned without review if this guidance is ignored.

Generic names of drugs should be used wherever possible. We discourage the use of non-standard abbreviations for medical terms, except where it would otherwise make the text unwieldy.

Footnotes are not included in the main text and will be removed.

Introduction

This should be a succinct and up-to-date review of the key publications informing the intellectual background to the study. It does not need to be a systematic review, but should avoid obviously selective citation of the literature. The introduction should lead to the framing of the research question being asked, and this should be clearly stated.

Method

This section should include a description of setting, patients, intervention, the time that the study took place, instruments used to measure outcomes, statistical tests applied, and software used for analysis, stating the version number. It should also include any arrangements for data oversight.

Results

This section should contain all the information required by reviewers and readers to assess the validity of the conclusions. For quantitative studies, the section should include details of the response rates and numbers lost to follow-up, and trials should include a CONSORT flow diagram. For more information, see the specific guidance on research articles below.

Statistics

Results of statistical analyses should be reported using estimates and confidence intervals whenever possible, to provide indications of magnitude and precision rather than just P-values. The P-value result alone is generally only useful for assessing statistical significance, not clinical significance. For serious outcomes, such as mortality, this is not so critical because as any reduction in mortality is beneficial but it is important for other outcomes where a judgment needs to be made about whether the clinical improvement is worth the cost of the intervention or treatment. Where P-values are presented so that readers can judge the strength of evidence for themselves, the exact figure should be quoted to two significant figures down to P = 0.01. Any figure below this can be quoted to one significant figure down to P = 0.001, below which P<0.001 will suffice. Examples of presentations are therefore P = 0.087, P = 0.002 but not P = 0.0005.

Discussion

Structure the discussion using these subheadings, in this order:

  • Summary
    This is an opportunity to state concisely what the study has found, emphasising the novelty and importance of the results if possible. You can expand on the significance of the findings for clinical practice and policy, and their implications for future research, in the final section of the Discussion.
     
  • Strengths and limitations
    As well as emphasising the strong points of the study – scale, recruitment and response rates, duration of follow-up, retention of subjects, richness of narrative material etc, use this section to be candid about the limitations of the work because, by doing so and reflecting on your methods and findings, you may be able to anticipate and perhaps mitigate criticisms that may be made during peer review.
     
  • Comparison with existing literature
    This is an opportunity to explain how your work takes the subject forward, describing how previously unanswered questions or uncertainties have now been answered or resolved, and how and why your findings agree or disagree with similar work in the field.
     
  • Implications for research and/or practice
    This is an important section in which you have the opportunity to crystallise the significance of your work for future research and, perhaps more importantly, for clinical practice or healthcare policy. This is not the place to air uncertainties or to introduce new discussions and further references: the clarity of this section is likely to reflect the clarity and precision of the research question and the subsequent findings.

Authors are expected to adopt this structure unless there are good reasons for not doing so. Additional subheadings can be used if they are likely to help readers understand the article.

Tables and figures

Up to a total of six tables, figures, or boxes are permitted in an article. Close attention should be paid to ensure clear presentation of data. This will normally mean keeping the data in each table (and the number of tables) to the minimum possible. A rough guide would be no more than five columns and rows in each table. The same general rule applies to figures.

We encourage use of graphic representation of data; please ensure that original data are also included for the purpose of redrafting where necessary. Pie charts are discouraged. All figures and tables must have a caption.

Supplementary data

Supplementary data may include additional figures, materials and methods, tables, or other items that add to the topic of the article but cannot be included within the body of the article. Authors must include the supplementary data when submitting the article and its revised versions. Please upload your Supplementary data as a single PDF and label Tables, Figures, and Boxes (for non-numerical data) with an S; for example, Table S1, Figure S1, Box S1, etc. Please cite these in the main text as Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Box 1, Supplementary Figure 1, etc. Please note, supplementary material will not be copyedited or typeset so will be published as supplied.

Additional information

At the end of the text and before the references we ask authors to report:

  • Funding: name of funding body with reference number where appropriate
  • Ethical approval: body giving ethics approval with reference number where appropriate
  • Competing interests
  • Acknowledgements

Authors should include acknowledgements of all those who have helped with and contributed to the study (including patients) who are not authors of the article. Individuals should only be acknowledged with their express permission.

References

These are presented in Vancouver style, with standard NLM title abbreviations for journals. Where appropriate, we encourage authors to cite primary literature in favour of reviews in order to give credit to the group(s) who first reported the finding (see DORA). References to personal communications in the text should include the date. Do not use automatic formatting features of your software such as footnotes and endnotes to indicate references.

Randomised controlled trials

Authors submitting randomised controlled trials should follow the revised CONSORT guidelines, including a completed CONSORT checklist and flowchart of participants in the trial.

You should also note the difficulty outlined in making statements about an intention-to-treat analysis. We acknowledge that this is a difficult area and ask that authors are candid about handling the data of patients lost to follow-up.

Negative trials, which refute a widely-used practice or policy, for instance, will be favourably considered.

Systematic reviews

We welcome systematic reviews, with or without meta-analysis (up to 2500 words plus data presented in up to six tables, figures, or boxes) on areas of interest and importance to primary care. They should be written in a style suitable for the BJGP Open, but should aspire to the quality standards set by the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

You may find it helpful to consult the instructions for systematic reviews given on the Cochrane Collaboration website. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should conform to the PRISMA statement. Reviews should include a structured abstract, a statement of the question that you are attempting to answer, and a description of the search strategy used to answer it. Authors should attempt to synthesise results of primary care research either quantitatively or qualitatively.

Clinical and policy reviews

We also welcome non-systematic reviews of clinical and policy topics, particularly when recent evidence has emerged to support new approaches to clinical diagnosis or management, or to provide new guidance on the structure and delivery of primary care services. These reviews should not exceed 2500 words plus up to four tables, figures or boxes. They should include an Introduction which clearly sets out the clinical or policy question being addressed, and a main section, broken up with appropriate subheadings, which sets out the available evidence in a critical narrative. A brief Discussion section, structured according to the subheadings outlined above, should encapsulate the main points of the review and, as far as possible, answer the question posed in the Introduction.

Research protocols and feasibility studies

Researchers often find it helpful to publish a peer-reviewed version of the research study protocol in advance of conducting and writing up the research itself. We will be happy to consider submissions of research protocols. Researchers also find it useful to publish the results of small-scale feasibility studies which, for example, provide guidance on likely recruitment rates and dropouts during follow-up in a larger study. We will be happy to consider submissions of feasibility studies. The text should not exceed 2500 words, with up to four accompanying figures or diagrams.

Qualitative research

Articles describing qualitative research should conform to the guidance set out in: O'Brien BC, Harris IB, Beckman TJ, et al. Standards for reporting qualitative research: a synthesis of recommendations. Acad Med 2014; 89(9): 1245-1251.

llustrative quotes should be included in the results section of the text where the themes are described. We recommend that the total word count including main text and quotes does not exceed 4000 words.

Guidelines on reporting health research

The EQUATOR Network provides details of all the guidelines on reporting various kinds of research studies including the following:

  • RECORD for studies using routinely-collected health data and electronic health records;
  • STARD for studies on the evaluation of diagnostic tests; and
  • STROBE for observational studies.

Open access publication

BJGP Open operates an open access publication policy for all its articles. Please see Open Access Publication on our Process and Policies page.​

Submit an article to BJGP Open

Submit your article via the BJGP Open submission system ScholarOne Manuscripts. When you register, make sure you enter your email address correctly, otherwise we’ll have no way of contacting you. If your email address changes, remember to update your profile.

 

 

 

 

 

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