Manuscript Types

The European Journal of Midwifery considers the following types of articles:

• Research Papers – reports of data from original research.
• Review Papers – comprehensive, authoritative, reviews within the journal's scope.
• Short Reports – brief reports of data from original research.
• Methodology Papers – papers that present different methodological approaches that can be used to investigate problems in a relevant scientific field and to encourage innovation.
• Policy Case Studies – brief articles on policy development at a regional or national level.
• Study Protocols – articles describing a research protocol of a study.
• Letters to the Editor – a response to authors of an original publication, or a very small article that may be relevant to readers.
• Editorials – articles written by members of the Editorial Board.

Research Papers
Articles reporting research may be full length or brief reports. These should report original research findings within the journal's scope. Papers should generally be a maximum of 4000 words in length, excluding a maximum of 5 tables, references, and abstract of the article, whilst it is recommended that the number of references should not exceed 36.

Review Papers
Comprehensive, authoritative, reviews within the journal's scope. There are two types of review papers:
- systematic review papers: respond to a specific research question, accrue from criterion-based selection of sources, include a quantitative synthesis and a statistical method (meta-analysis), and should adhere to PRISMA guidelines. Guidelines used for abstracting data and assessing data quality and validity should be noted in methods section.
- narrative review papers: the research question may be broad, and the scope of this review is to discuss a specific topic and keep the readers up-to-date about it. This type of review does not necessarily include a methodological approach and its synthesis is usually qualitative. Narrative reviews should include in a developments section, with details regarding data sources used, keywords applied, time restrictions and study types selected. Developments should be based on actual review articles.
All review papers should be generally less than 6000 words, excluding abstract, tables, figures and references. References should not exceed 50. Conclusion of the reviews should be specific and stem from the findings.

Short Reports
Brief reports of data from original research. Short reports are shorter versions of original articles, may include one table or figure, should not exceed 1500 words, and it is recommended that the number of references should not exceed 15. Short reports are suitable for the presentation of research that extends previously published research, including the reporting of additional controls and confirmatory results in other settings, as well as negative results. Authors must clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building, both published and unpublished.

Methodology Papers
Methodology Papers will present different methodological approaches that can be used to investigate problems in a relevant scientific field and to encourage innovation. It is suggested that case studies or practical examples, which can be existing ones, are included to demonstrate the consistency and applicability of the methodology.
Methodology papers should be generally less than 6000 words, excluding abstract, tables, figures and references. References should not exceed 50.

Policy Case Studies
The objective of this type of brief article is to foster regional academic midwifery, maternal and child health activities and to provide a forum for sharing ideas, examples of policy activities, for people working in in the field to present their regional successes or challenges in the area of Midwifery. Such brief articles should be accompanied by a high-resolution picture or example of the material used or presented. The word count for the text should not exceed 1500 words.

Study Protocols
This article type can be for proposed or for ongoing research and should contain the background, research hypothesis, rationale a detailed methodology of the study. The SPIRIT 2013 Checklist guidelines ideally should be applied. Study protocols submitted for publication must have received ethics approval. Protocols of randomized trials should follow the CONSORT guidelines and must have a trial registration number, while observational studies should follow STROBE guidelines. The maximum word count for the text should not surpass 1500 words.


Letters to the editor
A letter to the Editor is a brief report that is within the journal's scope and of particular interest to the community, but not suitable as a standard research paper. A maximum of ten articles may be included in the references. Letters to the Editor may be edited for clarity or length and may be subject to external peer review at the Editors' discretion. Letters intended for publication should be a maximum of 500 words, contain 10 references, and up to one table or figure. These rules apply both for research letters, and letters that respond to articles published in the journal. Letters to the editor are subject to editorial editing so as to streamline the article with the journal's style. Corrections to published articles are also published as a letter and linked to the corrected version of the article.

Editorials
Editorials are written by the Editorial Board and may reflect current articles within the European Journal of Midwifery or discuss significant national or international initiatives relevant to midwifery or maternal and child health or the academic development of Midwifery.