Policies

Focus and Scope

The Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA is an open access online journal of the Department of Medicine of the School of Health Sciences (ICSA) at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo. Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA is a biannual journal, published at the beginning of each period (January and July).

The objective of the journal is to publish all the latest important developments in health sciences in the areas of experimental, clinical and epidemiological research. The journal covers a very wide range of different disciplines:

• Clinical research
• Laws and regulations in the health area
• Nursing
• Nutrition
• Pharmacology
• Physiotherapy
• Sport Sciences

About the audience. Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA is a resource that offers all health science readers (basic and clinical researchers, clinical and non-clinical people, and all health science students) access to up-to-date information on the different related disciplines. As an open access journal, all readers have unrestricted access to all publications.

Published research articles, review articles, and case studies are subjected to a double-blind peer-review process. Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA accepts original and unpublished articles and must not have been previously published in other journals. The journal welcomes submissions of manuscripts from researchers at all levels of the health sciences and from around the world.

All manuscripts are published under the terms of the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which allows the unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction of the material, without commercial purposes, in any medium, provided that the work is properly cited. The main publication format of the journal is PDF. No payment is required from authors to publish their manuscripts in the journal. Manuscripts must be written in English.

Section Policies

Article

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Clinical Case

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA has an eminent editorial group of 15 members, who are all recognized experts in their field. Double-blind peer review is the critical evaluation of manuscripts submitted to our journal by experts who are not part of the editorial team. All papers submitted to the Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA are subject to an initial review by the Editor and an expert researcher from the editorial board. After that, the article is sent for peer review by independent external reviewers under the following criteria:

After Acceptance. Manuscripts accepted for publication are typeset and proofs are sent to authors for correction before final publication. The authors must review the proofs and return them within 48 hours.

Publishing process

The publication procedure of the manuscripts within the Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA includes the following phases:

• a. SHIPPING (Reception of manuscripts)
• b. REVIEW (Evaluation of manuscripts)
• c. EDITING (Sending the Webmetrics)
• d. PRODUCTION
• e. PUBLICATION

A manuscript cannot enter a phase without the previous one having been completed, so the criteria that differentiate each of the publication stages must be clearly identified by the author and the editorial committee itself. See Authors Guide

Publication Frequency

Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA is a biannual journal, published at the beginning of each period (January and July).

Months covered by the publication period of the issues: January-June and July-December.

Editorial flow

Open Access Policy

This is an open-access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which allows the user to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format, under the following terms:

• Attribution: Adequate recognition of the authorship of the journal, indicating the source.
• Non-Commercial: the material may not be used for commercial purposes.
• No Derivatives: the material may not be distributed if it has been modified or altered.

Self-Archiving Policy

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The publication promotes the dissemination, preservation, and open access to scientific knowledge.

Authors retain the copyright to their published works and authorize the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo to publish, disseminate, preserve, and distribute the content in accordance with the publication's current license.

Authors may share the bibliographic reference of their published works and the official publication link provided by the publication.

They may also deposit the published version in institutional repositories, academic repositories, scientific dissemination platforms, or personal websites, provided that:

• The corresponding attribution to the publication is maintained.
• The DOI or persistent identifier is preserved when one exists.
• The official published version is cited.
• The current Creative Commons license is respected.
• A derivative version is not altered, modified, or distributed when the applicable license restricts it.

Any subsequent dissemination is preferably expected to refer to the official version available on the UAEH institutional journal portal, in order to ensure preservation, traceability, and proper citation of the scientific content.

Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The publication recognizes that Artificial Intelligence tools, including generative AI systems, writing assistants, automatic translators, style correction tools, and information-organization support systems, may be used as auxiliary support during manuscript preparation.

The use of these tools does not replace the intellectual, ethical, and legal responsibility of the authors. Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy, originality, relevance, and academic validity of all content submitted to the publication.

The use of Artificial Intelligence tools is permitted for auxiliary tasks such as spelling and grammar correction, style improvement, translation, preliminary organization of ideas, or support for the clarity of the text.

It is not permitted to use Artificial Intelligence tools to fabricate, alter, or manipulate data, generate nonexistent bibliographic references, produce results or conclusions without human supervision, or present AI-generated content as one's own intellectual production without review and the corresponding declaration.

Artificial Intelligence tools may not be listed as authors or co-authors of any manuscript.

Authors must explicitly declare any significant use of Artificial Intelligence tools in manuscript preparation, indicating the tool used, version or model when possible, purpose of use, and scope of its participation.

The publication may request additional clarifications when there are indications of improper use of Artificial Intelligence tools.

Open Science and Data Availability

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The publication promotes the principles of Open Science through practices that foster transparency, reproducibility, and the responsible reuse of scientific knowledge.

Authors are encouraged to share datasets, supplementary materials, instruments, code, transcripts, or other resources derived from the research whenever possible and appropriate according to the nature of the work.

Materials may be deposited in recognized institutional, subject-specific, or academic repositories, preferably including the corresponding reference within the manuscript.

When ethical, legal, confidentiality, personal data protection, third-party rights, or institutional agreements restrict the sharing of information, authors must state this explicitly in the manuscript.

Data availability will be assessed considering the nature of each study, disciplinary particularities, and respect for the applicable ethical principles.

External Authorship Policy

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

External authorship is defined as authorship made up of authors whose primary affiliation does not correspond to UAEH. When a manuscript includes mixed authorship, its external status will be determined based on the primary affiliation declared by each author at the time of submission.

The publication will promote external authorship as part of academic openness, interinstitutional collaboration, and disciplinary diversity.

For editorial monitoring purposes, each journal or bulletin will publish an annual verifiable report on external authorship that will include, at minimum, the evaluated period, the total number of published articles, the total number of articles with at least one external author, the total number of listed authors, the total number of external authors, and the calculation method used.

The suggested institutional indicator will be as follows:

Percentage of articles with external authorship = (number of articles published in the period that include at least one author with an affiliation external to UAEH / total number of articles published in the period) x 100.

The journal may complement this indicator with the percentage of external authors relative to the total number of listed authors.

The annual report must be available on the journal or bulletin website and may be linked from the Editorial Policies, Announcements, or an institutional repository section.

Social Relevance Policy

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The publication will request that manuscripts include a brief section called "Social Relevance," "Social Impact," or equivalent, in which the academic, social, community, institutional, or professional usefulness of the study is clearly explained.

That section should indicate, as applicable, what problem the research addresses, which population or sector benefits, what contribution it makes, and what its disciplinary, territorial, or community scope is.

The length may be brief and adjusted to the nature of each discipline or article type.

Additionally, the editorial presentation of each issue may include a summary of the social value of the published works and their possible use by academic, professional, or social communities.

This information must be incorporated into the instructions for authors and the corresponding manuscript template.

Public Communication Policy

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The journal or bulletin will carry out public communication and scientific dissemination actions to increase the visibility of its calls for papers, editorial processes, published issues, and research results.

Dissemination actions may include announcements in OJS, institutional microsites, supporting websites, institutional social media, electronic bulletins, outreach notes, infographics, interviews, informational capsules, and other dissemination pieces approved by the editorial team.

Whenever possible, each dissemination action must include the publication date, link, responsible person or issuing area, and evidence of dissemination.

The publication will ensure that public communication always refers to the official version available on the institutional portal, in order to preserve traceability, proper citation, and editorial integrity.

Journals and bulletins may maintain an annual record of public communication activities as evidence of compliance.

Web Accessibility Policy

This policy is part of the institutional editorial guidelines applicable to the scientific journals and bulletins published by the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.

The publication adopts the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the technical reference for the progressive review of its website, graphic theme, plugins, forms, images, navigation, and PDF documents.

Compliance will not be presumed solely by the use of OJS 3.3.0-20 or by the default theme; any compliance statement must be supported by a documented technical verification of the specific installation.

The journal or bulletin will carry out periodic accessibility reviews and record the barriers detected, the corrections applied, and the remediation status.

When it is not possible to immediately correct a technical barrier inherited from the platform, the publication will document the limitation and establish priority improvement actions.

As part of this policy, published content should follow minimum accessibility best practices, including sufficient contrast, semantic heading structure, keyboard navigation, alternative text for images, form labels, readable text, and PDF documents prepared for accessible reading.

The publication may issue an accessibility status statement once the corresponding technical review has been completed.

Installation accessibility status:

The journal is conducting an ongoing technical review of its OJS installation, templates, and PDF documents. As of today, there is not enough evidence to declare full compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA. Any compliance statement must be based solely on documentary evidence derived from that review.

• Technical accessibility verification annex.

The publication acknowledges that web accessibility is part of a continuous improvement process. In this context, the progressive migration to more recent versions of the OJS platform is being evaluated, as these versions include functional and technical improvements that may support site and component accessibility.

At present, the upgrade to a later version is conditioned by technical dependencies and incompatibilities inherited from previous migrations, which are being resolved by the responsible team.

While that process is completed, the journal will maintain review, correction, and remediation measures on the current installation, with the aim of reducing access barriers and documenting the actual accessibility status of its portal.

Ethical Code

Authors' commitments

• Originality and plagiarism: The authors should guarantee that all manuscripts submitted to Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA are original and unpublished. Besides, the authors confirm the veracity of the data, i.e., that the empirical data have not been altered to validate the hypothesis.
• Authorship: Authors guarantee that the manuscript belongs to people who sign it. The condition of the author implies active participation in the realization of the presented article, in writing text and in revisions of the same one. At the same time, authors have been organized hierarchically according to their level of responsibility and their respective roles.
• Conflict of interest and disclosure: All authors must declare that there are no conflicts of interest that may have influenced the results, and authors must also indicate information about research funding and/or the project from which the article arises.
• Responsibility: The responsibility for the content of the articles published in Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA is exclusive to the authors. The authors also undertake to make a review of the most current and relevant scientific literature of the topic analyzed.
• Attributions, citations, and references: The author must always provide the correct indication of the sources and contributions mentioned in the article.

Reviewers' commitments

• Contribution to the editorial decision: Peer-review is a procedure that helps editors make decisions about the proposed articles and also allows the author to improve the quality of the articles submitted for publication. The reviewers assume the commitment to carry out a critical, honest, and constructive review of both the scientific quality and the literary quality of the writing in the field of their knowledge and skills.
• Respect for review times: Reviewer who does not feel competent in the subject to be reviewed or who cannot finish the evaluation at the scheduled time, must immediately notify the editors. The reviewers undertake to evaluate the works in the shortest possible time to respect the deadlines, given that in Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA the custody limits of the manuscripts are limited and inflexible due to respect for the authors and their works.
• Confidentiality: Each assigned manuscript must be considered confidential. Therefore, these texts should not be discussed with other people without the express consent of the editors.
• Objectivity: Reviewers are required to give sufficient reasons for each of their assessments, presenting a complete critical report with appropriate references; especially if it is proposed that the manuscript be rejected. They are required to warn editors if substantial parts of the manuscript have already been published or are under review for another publication.
• Anonymity: To ensure that the review process is as objective, impartial and transparent as possible, the authors' identity is deleted before the manuscript is submitted for peer-review. If it is the case that the identity of the authors, their institutional affiliations or any other data that expose the anonymity of the manuscript has been compromised, the reviewer must immediately notify the editors.

Editors' commitments

• Publication decision: Editors will guarantee the selection of the most qualified reviewers and scientists scientifically to issue a critical and expert appreciation of the manuscript, with the least possible prejudice. Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA decides to select at least 2 external reviewers for each manuscript to guarantee objectivity in the review process.
• Honesty: Editors evaluate the articles submitted for publication based on the scientific quality of the contents, without distinction of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, nationality, political opinion of the authors.
• Confidentiality: Editors and Editorial Committee undertake themselves to the confidentiality of the manuscripts, authors, and reviewers so that anonymity preserves the intellectual integrity of the entire process.
• Conflict of interests and disclosure: Editors agree not to use the contents of the articles submitted for publication in their investigations without the signed authorization of the author.
• Respect of times: Editors are maximum responsible for the accomplishment of the time limits for the revisions and the publication of the accepted manuscripts, to guarantee a fast diffusion of results.

Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA adheres to COPE's Core Practices (http://www.publicationethics.org).

Copyright

In the event that the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors maintain the copyright of their published articles without restrictions and permanently grant Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA the right of publication, reproduction, distribution, exhibition and national and international dissemination of your work to preserve it and make it open access in whole or in part through the current institutional digital media and channels, databases, repositories and portals under the same license of original use of publication in the scientific bulletin or of the same characteristics.

Authorship and Changes in Authorship

Authorship of manuscripts must be fully defined from the initial submission stage through the OJS platform. The inclusion, deletion, or reordering of authors, as well as a change in corresponding author, may only be considered during the manuscript evaluation stage, provided that this situation has been formally notified by the corresponding author before final acceptance and includes the corresponding justification.

Once the manuscript has been accepted and published, changes in authorship will not be allowed except in duly documented exceptional cases, which will be evaluated according to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Requests for authorship modification after publication, motivated by external administrative, institutional, or academic requirements, do not constitute a valid criterion for editorial changes and may be rejected to safeguard the integrity, transparency, and credibility of the publication.

APC Processing Charge

Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA has no article processing charge (APC), which includes:

• Shipping
• Reception
• Preliminary review
• Peer review
• Editing
• Publication
• DOI Assignment
• Marking

Plagiarism detection

All manuscripts submitted to the Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA will be subjected to plagiarism detection tools: EduBirdie, Plagius, and Plag, which analyze texts for matches to ensure their originality. This is done by the Editor-in-Chief upon receiving the submission and before starting the peer review process. If plagiarism or self-plagiarism is detected in a manuscript submitted for publication, the procedure detailed by COPE will be followed as outlined in the following diagram.

Errata and Retractions

Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA follows the recommendations issued by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) in relation to Correction, Retraction, and Republication, in order to avoid bad scientific practices and to publish corrections, clarifications, and retractions when necessary according to the following types of errors:

1. Errata - Unintentional Errors (errors in sampling, procedures, failure to reproduce results, accidental omission of information about methods or data analysis): when an author or another person on the committee discovers an error or significant inaccuracy in a published work, it is their obligation to immediately notify the journal and assist, as applicable, in correcting the document. The editor-in-chief, together with the editorial committee, will evaluate the situation and, if there is an erratum, the published document will be corrected and updated, attaching a second document that uses the corresponding journal template and must contain and indicate the following:
   1. The modification date.
   2. The exact parts of the document that were corrected or modified, showing the before and after.
   3. If necessary, the justification for the change.
   4. The information regarding the title of the affected manuscript, the volume, number, and year of publication of the original.
   5. The approval signature of the editor-in-chief who validates the procedure.
   6. If future corrections are required, they must be updated in the latest modified version of the attached document, maintaining all previous versions of the incidents as a record of events.
2. Retractions - Voluntary Errors (forgery, fabrication, or plagiarism): if an already published article presents substantive errors detected by the author and that threaten scientific quality, the author may request withdrawal or correction. However, if plagiarism, prior publication, unethical conduct, or error is detected by a third party, it is the author's obligation and responsibility to publicly retract the article, which will be removed or corrected immediately after a thorough analysis by the editor-in-chief validating the event. The manuscript will be withdrawn while maintaining the publication of the title, attaching a subsequent document stating the reasons and/or causes that led to its withdrawal, which must contain:
   1. The information regarding the title of the affected manuscript, volume, number, and year of publication of the original.
   2. The causes and/or reasons, as well as the corresponding evidence, for the retraction or withdrawal of the manuscript.
   3. The date of original publication and the date of retraction or withdrawal of the manuscript.
   4. The approval signature of the editor-in-chief who validates the procedure.

It is worth mentioning that online publication and DOI assignment to the manuscript will be maintained in either case. If necessary, the organizations in which the journal/bulletin is currently indexed will be notified of these corrections.

Metadata and Interoperability Policy

The publication adopts a metadata policy designed to ensure interoperability, editorial traceability, the correct citation of published works, and the permanent retrieval of its content.

The publication uses Dublin Core as its main interoperability schema through OAI-PMH, with public access to its harvesting endpoint at the following address:

https://repository.uaeh.edu.mx/revistas/index.php/MJMR/oai

This implementation enables the harvesting and exchange of metadata with indexing, aggregation, and bibliographic preservation systems.

Mandatory metadata

Every submitted manuscript and every published article must record, at a minimum, the following metadata:

• title in the manuscript's main language
• title in English
• full name of each author
• full institutional affiliation
• country of affiliation
• ORCID identifier
• correspondence email
• abstract / summary
• keywords
• manuscript language
• dates of receipt, review, acceptance, postprint when applicable, and publication
• normalized bibliographic references
• DOI or other persistent identifier, when applicable
• publication license
• volume, issue, year, and page range of the published article

When the manuscript type requires it, other metadata may also be mandatory, such as funding, conflict of interest statement, data availability, acknowledgments, and editorial notes.

Editorial capture and validation

Metadata are initially captured by authors during the OJS submission process.

Subsequently, metadata review and validation are the responsibility of the editorial team. In particular:

• the section editor reviews that the metadata are complete and consistent with the submitted manuscript;
• the editor-in-chief validates the final coherence among the metadata, the manuscript, the authorization or transfer letter, and the editorial publication information;
• the editorial team may request corrections before advancing the manuscript to review, editing, or publication.

Editorial validation must confirm that the published metadata match the final accepted manuscript, the corresponding authorization or transfer letter, and the version published in OJS.

Post-publication correction

If a metadata error is detected after publication, the publication will apply the editorial mechanism proportional to the type of error.

• For minor metadata errors, the corresponding editorial correction will be issued, such as an erratum or corrigendum, as appropriate.
• The original published version must not be removed or hidden.
• The correction must remain clearly linked to the original article.
• The date of the correction and the nature of the change must be documented.
• If the error affects citation elements, authorship, affiliation, DOI, abstract, keywords, or license, the published metadata must be updated in OJS and, where applicable, in harvesting and indexing services.

If the detected problem compromises the integrity of the editorial record, authorship, originality, or validity of the content, the case will be evaluated in accordance with COPE guidance on corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions.

Multiformat export development

The publication may progressively incorporate multiformat export processes from the editorial source file, in accordance with a conversion and validation methodology that ensures consistency between the original and its derivative outputs.

Editorial commitment

The publication is committed to ensuring that its metadata are complete, verifiable, consistent, interoperable, and correctable with traceability when a legitimate error exists.

Postprint

With the firm commitment and conviction of disseminating the results of scientific research and innovation as soon as possible, the manuscripts accepted for publication are presented, after a double-blind peer review process (Post-Prints). These manuscripts will appear in their final version in a future edition of the Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA and only the information related to the volume, number, date of publication and pagination will change. It is worth mentioning that each Post-Print has its own Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which can already be used for citations/references. However, it will be officially registered when the manuscript is in its final version and appears in a specific volume and number of the Mexican Journal of Medical Research ICSA.

Digital Preservation

In order to ensure the integrity, accessibility and long-term preservation of published content, this journal implements various digital preservation strategies. In particular, it actively participates in the following initiatives:

• PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN): Preservation system driven by the Public Knowledge Project, which ensures the safeguarding of journal content that uses OJS and meets established editorial requirements.
• LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe):Decentralized preservation technology that allows storing multiple copies of content in different participating libraries, guaranteeing its recovery in case of loss or damage.
• CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS):Controlled variant of LOCKSS, managed by academic libraries and publishers, which offers a reliable and permanent archiving solution.

These tools allow the safeguarding of articles and editorial materials through distributed and secure copies, reinforcing the journal's commitment to the continuous availability of scientific knowledge.

Indexes and databases

Our journal is proudly indexed in several recognized platforms, check them here