Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy

   + Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy

Manuscript Submission Guidelines

Table of Contents:

1.  Open Access
2.  What do we publish?

2.1 Aims & scope
2.2 Article types
2.3 Writing your paper

 3.  Editorial policies

3.1 Peer review policy
3.2 Authorship
3.3 Acknowledgements
3.4 Funding
3.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
3.6 Research ethics and patient consent
3.7 Clinical trials
3.8 Reporting guidelines
3.9 Data

4.  Publishing policies

4.1 Publication ethics
4.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

5. Preparing your manuscript

5.1 Word processing formats
5.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
5.3 Supplementary material
5.4 Reference style
5.5 English language editing services

6. Submitting your manuscript

6.1 How to submit your manuscript
6.2 Title, keywords and abstracts
6.3 Information required for completing your submission
6.4 ORCID
6.5 Permissions

7. On acceptance and publication

7.1 SAGE Production
7.2 Online publication
7.3 Promoting your article

8. Further information

 
 This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Please read the guidelines below then visit the journal’s submission site

https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hkjot to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. Remember you can log in to the submission site at any time to check on the progress of your paper through the peer review process.

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy will be reviewed.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.

 

1. Open Access

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. Each article accepted by peer review is made freely available online immediately upon publication, is published under a Creative Commons license and will be hosted online in perpetuity. Publication costs of the journal are covered by the collection of article processing charges which are paid by the funder, institution or author of each manuscript upon acceptance. The Hong Kong Occupational Therapy Association is currently covering the publication costs for all authors.

For general information on open access at SAGE please visit the Open Access page or view our Open Access FAQs.

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2. What do we publish?

2.1 Aims & scope

Before submitting your manuscript to Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

2.2 Article types

Review articles

The journal accepts systematic reviews or meta-analyses of new and updated assessments and interventions in occupational therapy. These should aim to provide the reader with a balanced overview of an important and topical subject in the field, and should be systematic, critical assessments of literature and data sources. They should cover aspects of a topic in which scientific consensus exists as well as aspects that remain controversial and are the subject of ongoing scientific research. All articles and data sources should be selected systematically for inclusion in the review and critically evaluated.

Typical length: not more than 4000 words (including abstract), there should be no more than 5 tables or figures and not more than 50 references.

 Research papers

The journal welcomes studies about occupational therapy instrument development and testing, surveillances of occupational dysfunction, occupational science, occupational therapy theory and professional model development, occupational therapy education, efficacy and effectiveness of occupational therapy interventions in the form of preliminary single group studies to multicentre randomized controlled trials, as well as translational science research in rehabilitation.

In general, section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, , Conclusion, Declarations, References.

The Introduction should provide a brief background to the subject of the paper, explain the importance of the study, and state a precise study question or purpose.

The Methods section should describe the study design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patient samples or animal specimens used, with inclusion and exclusion criteria, ethical approval and issue, the laboratory methods followed, or data sources and how these were selected for the study, the essential features of any interventions, the main outcome measures), and state the statistical procedures employed in the research.

The Results section should comprise the study results presented in a logical sequence, supplemented with tables and/or figures. Take care that the text does not repeat data that are presented in the tables and/or figures.

The Discussion section should be used to emphasize the new and important aspects of the study, placing the results in context with published literature, the implications of the findings, limitations of the study, and the conclusions that follow from the study results.

Typical length: not more than 4000 words (including abstract), and not more than 40 references. There should be no more than 6 tables or figures.

Case reports

The journal accepts creative designs of assistive devices to innovative and new treatments of rare dysfunctions with detailed documentation in the form of a clinical note, as well as short discussions of a case study or case series in clinical practice with unique features not previously described that make an important teaching point or scientific observation.

In general, section headings should be: Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion, Conclusion or Clinical Message, Declarations, References.

The Introduction should describe the purpose of the report, the significance of the condition and its specificity, and briefly review the relevant literature.

The Case Report should, in the case of devices, describe the specifications, mechanical or technological aspects and evaluation of the device(s) used in assessment, treatment, management or education, or, in the case of a typical case report, include the general data of the case, medical history, family history, chief complaint, present illness, clinical manifestation, methods of diagnosis and treatment, and outcome.

The Discussion should compare, analyze and discuss the similarities and differences between the reported device or case and existing devices or similar previously reported cases. The importance or specificity of the case should be restated when discussing the differential diagnoses. Suggest the prognosis and possibility of prevention. The conclusion or clinical message to summarize the clinical findings.

A case report should always include patient consent to publish where an individual’s personal information is included and where the patient is identifiable.

Typical length: not more than 1500 words, not more than 15 references.

Commentary

The journal welcomes Commentary papers that comment on contemporary professional and research issues in occupational therapy, new concepts, theories and models of occupational therapy frameworks, and cultural dialogue on the applications of occupational therapy particularly in the Asian-Pacific context. Papers in this category may also include discussions of professional, political, ethical or social issues that impact clients' welfare, and the role and practice of occupational therapy in Hong Kong, Mainland China and other countries in Asia-Pacific. The journal also accepts brief discussions focusing on 1 or 2 key points about a single study—strengths, weaknesses, controversies, how it should or should not change clinical practice, or how it illustrates some important principle of science or methodology. These are usually written by editors or reviewers involved in the evaluation of a submitted manuscript, and published concurrently with that manuscript.

Typical length: not more than 2500 words, not more than 40 references.

 Correspondence

These include brief constructive comments concerning previously published articles in the HKJOT, interesting cases that do not meet the requirement of being truly exceptional, short letters on significant preliminary clinical data and other communications of general interest.

Correspondence should have a title and include appropriate references, and include the corresponding author's e-mail address. Correspondence are edited, sometimes extensively, to sharpen their focus. They may be sent for peer review at the discretion of the Editor.

Typical length: not more than 600 words, 5 references; 1 table and/or 1 figure may be included.

 Book reviews

These are written by invited reviewers of newly published books in the field.

2.3 Writing your paper

The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. SAGE Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.ral advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.

2.3.1 Making your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online

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3. Editorial policies

3.1 Peer review policy

The journal’s policy is to have manuscripts reviewed by two expert reviewers. Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy utilizes a double-anonymize peer review process in which the reviewer and authors’ names and information are withheld from the other. All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, while maintaining rigor. Reviewers make comments to the Section Editor and recommendations to the Editor-in-Chief who then makes the final decision.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the name of 1 peer who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below: 

 The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission

 The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors

 Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted

Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite any recommended reviewer to assess your manuscript.

The Editor or members of the Editorial Board may occasionally submit their own manuscripts for possible publication in the journal. In these cases, the peer review process will be managed by alternative members of the Board and the submitting Editor / Board member will have no involvement in the decision-making process.

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy is committed to delivering high quality, fast peer-review for your paper, and as such has partnered with Publons. Publons is a third party service that seeks to track, verify and give credit for peer review. Reviewers for Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy can opt in to Publons in order to claim their reviews or have them automatically verified and added to their reviewer profile. Reviewers claiming credit for their review will be associated with the relevant journal, but the article name, reviewer’s decision and the content of their review is not published on the site. For more information visit the Publons website.

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3.2 Authorship

Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:

Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,

 Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,

 Approved the version to be published,

Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

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3.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

3.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, SAGE reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

3.3.1 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance.
It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

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3.4 Funding

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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3.5 Declaration of conflicting interests  

It is the policy of Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.

Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’.

For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations.

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3.6 Research ethics and patient consent

Medical research involving human subjects must be conducted according to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Submitted manuscripts should conform to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, and all papers reporting animal and/or human studies must state in the methods section that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board provided (or waived) approval. Please ensure that you have provided the full name and institution of the review committee, in addition to the approval number.

For research articles, authors are also required to state in the methods section whether participants provided informed consent and whether the consent was written or verbal.

Information on informed consent to report individual cases or case series should be included in the manuscript text. A statement is required regarding whether written informed consent for patient information and images to be published was provided by the patient(s) or a legally authorized representative.

Please also refer to the ICMJE Recommendations for the Protection of Research Participants

All research involving animals submitted for publication must be approved by an ethics committee with oversight of the facility in which the studies were conducted. The Journal has adopted the ARRIVE guidelines.

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3.7 Clinical trials

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy conforms to the ICMJE requirement that clinical trials are registered in a WHO-approved public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrolment as a condition of consideration for publication. Retrospective registration is accepted upon appropriate reason given by the authors. The trial registry name and URL, and registration number must be included at the end of the abstract.

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3.8 Reporting guidelines

The relevant EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines should be followed depending on the type of study. For example, all randomized controlled trials submitted for publication should include a completed CONSORT flow chart as a cited figure and the completed CONSORT checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should include the completed PRISMA flow chart as a cited figure and the completed PRISMA checklist should be uploaded with your submission as a supplementary file. The EQUATOR wizard can help you identify the appropriate guideline.

Other resources can be found at NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.

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3.9 Data

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy requests all authors submitting any primary data used in their research articles alongside their article submissions to be published in the online version of the journal, or provide detailed information in their articles on how the data can be obtained. This information should include links to third-party data repositories or detailed contact information for third-party data sources. Data available only on an author-maintained website will need to be loaded onto either the journal’s platform or a third-party platform to ensure continuing accessibility. Examples of data types include but are not limited to statistical data files, replication code, text files, audio files, images, videos, appendices, and additional charts and graphs necessary to understand the original research. The editors may consider limited embargoes on proprietary data. The editors can also grant exceptions for data that cannot legally or ethically be released. All data submitted should comply with Institutional or Ethical Review Board requirements and applicable government regulations. For further information, please contact the editorial office at HKJOT@sagepub.co.uk.

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4. Publishing policies

4.1 Publication ethics

SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.

4.1.1 Plagiarism

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarized other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

4.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published, it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

4.2 Contributor’s publishing agreement

Before publication SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement.  Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy publishes manuscripts under Creative Commons licenses. The standard license for the journal is Creative Commons by Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC), which allows others to re-use the work without permission as long as the work is properly referenced and the use is non-commercial. For more information, you are advised to visit SAGE's OA licenses page.

Alternative license arrangements are available, for example, to meet particular funder mandates, made at the author’s request.

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5. Preparing your manuscript

5.1 Word processing formats

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

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5.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines 

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

While color figures will be reproduced on the journal's Website in color free of charge, authors will be charged US$400 (HK$3120) per page that has color figures in the print journal to cover the cost of printing in color. Authors must inform the HKJOT upon manuscript acceptance if they intend to keep any color figures for publication in the print journal, otherwise all color figures will be converted to greyscale as default.

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5.3 Supplementary material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. These will be subjected to peer-review alongside the article.  For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files, which can be found within our Manuscript Submission Guidelines page.

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5.4 Reference style

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy adheres to the APA reference style. Please review the guidelines on APA to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the APA output file here.

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5.5 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.

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6. Submitting your manuscript

6.1 How to submit your manuscript

Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit [https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hkjot] to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

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6.2 Title, keywords and abstracts

Please supply a title, short title, an abstract and keywords to accompany your article. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article online through online search engines such as Google. Please refer to the information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords by visiting the SAGE Journal Author Gateway for guidelines on How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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6.3 Information required for completing your submission

Provide full contact details for the corresponding author including email, mailing address and telephone numbers. Academic affiliations are required for all co-authors. These details should be presented separately to the main text of the article to facilitate anonymous peer review.

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

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6.4 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognized.

We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their SAGE Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.

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6.5 Permissions

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.

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7. On acceptance and publication

If your paper is accepted for publication after peer review, you will first be asked to complete the contributor’s publishing agreement.

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7.1 SAGE Production

Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will made available to the corresponding author via our editing portal SAGE Edit, or by email to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.  Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

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7.2 Online publication

One of the many benefits of publishing your research in an open access journal is the speed to publication. With no page count constraints, your article will be published online in a fully citable form with a DOI number as soon as it has completed the production process. At this time it will be completely free to view and download for all.

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7.3 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.

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8. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the Manuscript Submission process should be sent to the Hong Kong Journal of Occupational Therapy editorial office as follows:

Philippa.Stevens@sagepub.co.uk

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