Peer Review Policy

INITIAL ASSESSMENT:

The manuscript is immediately acknowledged, and initial screening is done for its suitability according to journal guidelines, originality, and similarity index. If the manuscript is found satisfactory, it is sent to two external reviewers.

PEER REVIEW & MANUSCRIPT PROCESSING:
JSHMDC is a Peer-reviewed journal. A DOUBLE ANONYMUS PEER REVIEW policy is followed. After an initial assessment, the manuscript is sent to two reviewers after blinding for authors' names and affiliations, and three weeks is given for review. A reminder is sent if the reviewer doesn’t submit the review in 3 weeks. If the reviewer doesn’t respond within one week after the reminder, the manuscript is sent to 3rd reviewer for review. 

On receipt of comments, the reviewer's comments are communicated to the author. The author will be given two weeks to incorporate the reviewers’ comments in the manuscript. The first reminder will be given to the author at three weeks if the author does not comply with the timelines. The second reminder will be given in 4th week. The article will be declined if no response is received after two reminders. If the revised article is received, it is checked for incorporating suggested changes. If the changes are not incorporated, and there are major revisions, the manuscript is sent for 2nd round of the review process following the same timelines. A period of 3-5 months is set to finalize the process, and if approved, a letter of acceptance is issued to the author.

Each reviewer will be asked to evaluate not more than two manuscripts for each issue of this Bi-annual journal. The authors can suggest reviewers themselves with affiliation and contact details of the reviewers in a cover letter, but it is up to the editor to accept it. We prefer reviewers of our own journal’s database.

Reviewers must ensure that:
• each manuscript is critically assessed for the originality, importance, and quality of research work.
• the study's title and objectives are in line with the conclusion.
• the rationale of the study is mentioned.
• study design, duration & place where the study was conducted, inclusion & exclusion criteria, methodology, and statistical analysis are mentioned.
• presentation of the result is supported by tables and figures
• new findings have been discussed and compared with previous data.
• conclusion, strengths, limitations of the study, and future recommendations are mentioned.
• source of funding is declared, if any.
• acknowledgments are mentioned if any.
Reviewers should declare any conflict of interest to the editor and must complete the review within a specified period (usually four weeks). Reviewers should fill out the review Form, even if the comments are added in the manuscript.

The reviewer's comments are communicated to the author upon receipt. The author will be given two weeks to incorporate the reviewers’ comments in the revised manuscript. The revised version of the article is checked for incorporation of suggested changes. A period of 2-4 months is set to finalize the process, and if approved, a letter of acceptance is issued to the author.
Due to the blind peer review policy, details of the reviewers are not shared publicly. However, the details can be provided to national and international indexing agencies (e.g., HEC Pakistan, PMC, Scopus, DOAJ etc.) on demand.