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Advances in Psychiatric Treatment

Instructions for authors

Advances in Psychiatric Treatment first appeared in September 1994. The journal now contains about ten articles per issue, covering the areas of physical methods of treatment, psychosocial treatments, sub-specialties of psychiatry and issues concerning management of an individual consultant service.

Our intention is to publish useful articles for fully trained consultant psychiatrists who may, however, have completed their training some years ago. We assume that readers are familiar with conventional basic terminology and have considerable clinical experience, but they may have no expert knowledge in the subject of a particular article. We hope that Advances will contribute to improving consultant's effectiveness, confidence and knowledge in the treatment of patients.

Advances is concerned with providing continuing medical education and the emphasis of your article should be on the practical implications of the subject. The approach should be appropriate for an educational piece, not a journal article or review paper. Articles should be factual, lucid and informative, with clear explanation of any points of technique. Readers should be able to extract information and techniques that they can use in everyday practice. Please make full use of displayed lists, case reports, etc. to illustrate points. Include boxes, for example for key learning points, good-practice points and lists of controversial issues. Use plenty of clear headings in the text. The format is intended to be ‘user friendly’ and those reading the journal will be taking part in an exercise in continuing education.

On submission, all articles are subjected to the journal's rigorous practice of peer review.

Advances has a particular house style and, after acceptance for publication, there will probably be some modifications to scripts to bring them into line with this style.

Advances is not responsible for statements made by contributors and, unless so stated, material in it does not necessarily reflect the views of the Editor or the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Published articles become the property of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and may be published elsewhere, in full or in part, only with the written permission of the Head of Publications.

Online submission
Manuscripts for publication must be submitted online at http://submit-apt.rcpsych.org. A unique account will be created for each contributor using his or her email address as identification. (Note for contributors with more than on email account: please ensure you use the same email address whenever logging on to the manuscript submission website.) Contributors may track the progress of their submissions at any time via this website. For assistance with online submission, please email apt@rcpsych.ac.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7235 2351 extension 111.

Length
Unless stated otherwise by the Editor, your article should be about 4000 words long – probably about 14 pages of A4 double-spaced type – excluding references, tables, etc. Please note that the length of articles is constrained by the format of the journal.

Manuscripts
The names, qualifications, job description and full address of all authors should be given at the beginning of the article. A short biographical summary, of about 50 words, on the author or authors is also required. This should contain full names, job titles, brief details of any other posts held and research interests. Manuscripts should also include a declaration of interest for each author. This should list fees and grants from, employment by, consultancy for, shared ownership in, or any close relationship with an organisation whose interests, financial or otherwise, may be affected by the publication of the article. Details that the Editor thinks are of relevance to readers will be included in the published article.

You are encouraged to use figures, both illustrations and black and white photographs, and tables. Electronic copy or the best possible hard copy of each figure should be supplied (original artwork from your drawing office, clean output from your laser printer, etc.).

You are responsible for obtaining copyright permission for material originally published elsewhere.

Abstracts
Unless stated otherwise by the editor, your article should begin with a brief (fewer than 150 words) unstructured abstract. A separate 'summary' section at the end of the article is not required.

Abbreviations
Use of abbreviations should be kept to a minimum, and they must be spelt out in full on first use.

Boxes
Please save tables, boxes and figures as separate files or at the end of the manuscript and cite each in the text. Information should be presented simply (e.g. as a list). Please do not create your own box surround. For example:

Box 2. Key questions for OCD pharmacotherapy
What kind of drug?
What dose?
How long should treatment continue?
What are the long-term advantages/disadvantages?
What happens if treatment is discontinued?
What if the patient fails to respond?

Case studies
If an individual is described, his or her consent should be obtained and submitted with the manuscript. Our consent form can be downloaded here. The individual should read the report before submission. If the individual is not able to give informed consent, it should be obtained from a legal representative or other authorised person. If informed consent cannot be obtained, the report can be published only if all details that would enable any potential reader (including the individual or anyone else) to identify the person are omitted. Merely altering some details, such as age and location, is not sufficient to ensure that a person's confidentiality is maintained. Contributors should be aware of the risk of complaint by individuals in respect of defamation and breach of confidentiality, and where concerned should seek advice. Fictional case studies (clearly indicated as such) are acceptable and perhaps preferable.

References
All reported data and results should be referenced. To keep the reference list as short as possible it is better to cite a few comprehensive review articles and books rather than listing numerous original sources. References may also indicate further reading and give evidence for key points. Authors might like to draw particular attention to a small number of references that they consider a reader could usefully follow up, and this can be done by the use of an asterisk. Please use the reduced Harvard system of referencing. The first-named author and the date are cited in the text. Thus, taking examples from the reference list sample below:

... as shown in previous studies (Brown 2005a,b; Silverstone 2007). An earlier trial by Silverstone and colleagues (Silverstone 1988) is of particular interest because ...

Reference lists (double-spaced in the typescript) should follow the style example below:

Brown C (2005a) Intellectual Disability and Obesity. Cambridge University Press.

Brown C, Jones G (eds) (2005b) Developmental Disability and Behaviour. MacKeith Press.

Please note in particular: journal titles are given in full; for chapters in books: the chapter title is shown, the editors are given after the book title and the page range for the chapter is shown. References to unpublished material such as conference proceedings or poster presentations are not acceptable. Written permission to cite personal communications (correspondence) or unpublished research must be obtained from the correspondee or researcher. All rating scales and diagnostic systems should be referenced.

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) and extended matching items (EMIs)
You are asked to set five MCQs for your article, with a list of answers (true/false). Each question should comprise a stem and five options, only one of which should be true. The questions should be straightforward and really only testing whether the article has been read or not. If you prefer, you may set three EMIs instead of MCQs (see examples). The EMI format is designed for testing how knowledge can be applied in a clinical situation. Help can be provided with the format of MCQs and EMIs, provided that the questions and answers are supplied.

General
Use the generic names of drugs. Generally, SI units should be used; when they are not, the SI equivalent should be included in parentheses. Units should not use indices: i.e. report g/ml, not gml^-1. Avoid using notes separate from the text, whether they be footnotes or a separate section at the end of an article.

Proofs
Accepted manuscripts are subject to copy-editing to improve readability and to make the editorial changes required for conformity with house style. Proofs will be sent to the person identified on the manuscript as the corresponding author.

If you are interested in contributing to Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, please email the Editor at apt{at}rcpsych.ac.uk.