PREHOSPITAL EMERGENCY CARE
Official Journal of the National Association of EMS Physicians, the National Association of State EMS Directors, the National Association of EMS Educators, and the National Association of EMTs.

PREHOSPITAL EMERGENCY CARE publishes peer-reviewed information relevant to the practice, educational advancement, and investigation of prehospital emergency care, including the following types of articles: Special Contributions - Original Articles - Education and Practice - Preliminary Reports - Case Conferences - Position Papers - Collective Reviews - Editorials - Letters to the Editor - Media Reviews

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Please submit your original manuscript through Manuscript Central at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/pec. The file should be prepared using MS Word or WordPerfect. See the "Tables and Figures" and "Illustrations" sections of these instructions for table and figure file requirements. Each manuscript must be accompanied by a signed statement that the research is original and the information has not been reported in large part in a published article or contained in another paper that has been submitted or accepted for publication in print or electronic media.

Designate an author for correspondence and provide his or her phone number, fax number, e-mail address, and mailing address. Manuscripts are received with the understanding that they are not under consideration by another publication and that they are not duplicative of material(s) published or submitted elsewhere by the author(s). Provide copies of the manuscripts under review or published elsewhere when submitting material from an investigation previously published in part or related to other published materials.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. It is the sole responsibility of authors to disclose any affiliation with any organization with a financial interest, direct or indirect, in the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript (such as consultancies, employment, paid expert testimony, honoraria, speakers bureaus, retainers, stock options or ownership, patents or patent applications or travel grants) that may affect the conduct or reporting of the work submitted. All sources of funding for research are to be explicitly stated. If uncertain as to what might be considered a potential conflict of interest, authors should err on the side of full disclosure.

All submissions to the journal must include full disclosure of all relationships that could be viewed as presenting a potential conflict of interest. If there are no conflicts of interest, authors should state that there are none. This must be stated at the point of submission (within the manuscript after the main text under a subheading "Declaration of interest" and where available within the appropriate field on the journal's Manuscript Central site). This may be made available to reviewers and will appear in the published article at the discretion of the Editors or Publisher.

If no conflict is declared, the following statement will be attached to all articles:

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

The intent of this policy is not to prevent authors with these relationships from publishing work, but rather to adopt transparency such that readers can make objective judgments on conclusions drawn.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

Writing should conform to acceptable English usage and syntax. Avoid slang, medical jargon, obscure abbreviations, and abbreviated phrasing. Give measurements in SI units, with values and units using other measurement systems in parentheses where appropriate. Use generic drug names unless the trade name is relevant. With rare exception, surveys should have 75% or greater response rate.

1) Title Page. The title should not exceed 80 characters, including punctuation and spaces. Do not use abbreviations. Include the full names, degrees, and affiliations of all authors or identification of a collective study group; the address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address to which requests for reprints and author correspondence should be sent; a short running title; and six or fewer key words from the medical subjects headings book of Index Medicus. If an author's affiliation has changed since the work was done, list the new affiliation too. Describe each author's contribution to the conception, performance, analysis, and writing of the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor. If the manuscript was presented at a meeting, provide the name of the organization and place and date of the meeting.
2) Study group authorship and acknowledgments page. When authorship is attributed to a group, all members must meet the criteria for authorship. Identify the members by responsibility or by institution on a study group authorship page. Acknowledge individuals who have provided assistance or support in a study or manuscript preparation. Identify financial support of the investigation or manuscript development. Describe any financial arrangement that might represent a conflict of interest.
3) Abstract. The abstract should contain 350 words or fewer. An investigation requires a structured abstract, defining Objective, Methods, Results, and Conclusions. Abstracts for other articles need not be structured. Outline the purpose of the article, major points covered, and recommendations developed. Abstracts for literature reviews and annotated bibliographies must specify how the literature was searched and how cited articles were chosen.
4) Introduction. Give a brief explanation of the background and rationale for the study. Include hypothesis statements when appropriate.
5) Methods. Incorporate headed subsections that detail the study design, population and setting, human subject or animal use committee review, experimental protocol, measurements or key outcome measures, analytical methods, and sample size determinations. Manuscripts reporting the results of investigations of human subjects must indicate approval by an institutional review board (human subjects committee). State that written informed consent was obtained from all patients or that this requirement was waived by the IRB. Manuscripts reporting the results of investigations of animal subjects must indicate approval by an animal use committee. State that the care and handling of the animals were in accord with NIH guidelines or other internationally recognized guidelines for ethical animal research.
6) Results. Provide descriptive and comparative statistical analyses. Tables and figures that summarize the data should also be introduced in this section. It is appropriate to identify any significant differences that were observed, but interpretation and relevance should be discussed in the next section.
7) Discussion. Highlight the most important findings of the study. Discuss the clinical ramifications, any unexpected results, and how the investigation relates to previous publications. Identify any limitations to the study, and mention potential areas for future investigation.
8) Conclusion. The conclusion should reiterate the answers to the study questions (matching the objectives and/or hypotheses).
9) References. List references in consecutive numerical order (not alphabetically). All citations to a reference should be to the original number. Every reference must be cited at least once in the text or a table. References to journal articles should include, in the following order: a) all authors up to seven; b) title and subtitle if any; c) journal name; d) year; e) volume number; f) issue number (or month), for journals such as JEMS that do not number pages consecutively throughout the year; g) year. Include volume and edition, specific pages, and translators when appropriate. The author is responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and text citations.
10) Tables. Tables must be referenced in the text in sequential order. Each table should be on a separate page, with an Arabic table number and descriptive title. Identify all table abbreviations in the footnotes. Reference footnoted information using italicized superscript lowercase letters.
11) Figures and figure legends. Figures must be referenced in the text in sequential order. They should clarify and augment the text. Put legend (each 40 words or fewer) on a new page.

Duplicated Material

Written permission from the authors and publishers for republication of figures and tables taken from other publications must be provided after acceptance of the manuscript. The sources of such material must be acknowledged in the manuscript.

EDITING

Acceptance of the manuscript for publication is contingent upon completion of the editing process, including copyediting. Every author is responsible for all statements published in the article, including the changes made in the editing process. After the copyedited manuscript has been typeset, it and the proofs will be sent to the corresponding author for routing to co-authors and final approval.