2.8.2 Instructions to authors

  • Types and structure of accepted documents;
  • Scope and prioritization of research that can be evaluated for publication;
  • Evaluation process of the manuscripts received;
  • Languages accepted for publication;
  • Bibliographic standard adopted for citations and references (the use of internationally accepted standards, without adaptations, is recommended);
  • Orientation for the presentation of tables, graphs, boxes, and figures;
  • Guidance for the preparation of a structured abstract (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion);
  • Recommendation for the use of DeCS (Health Sciences Descriptors) descriptors for selection of keywords;
  • Authorship:
    • Form of presentation of the authors’ names (full name, no abbreviations);
    • Complete institutional affiliation of all authors (institution, city, state, and country);
    • Corresponding contact details of the author;
    • Persistent digital identifier (ORCID, Researcher ID or the like);
    • Author’s responsibility concerning the content, according to the ICMJE criteria and functions defined in the CRediT taxonomy.
  • Guidelines on good ethical practices that articles should present:
    • Identification of the investigation’s integrity in accordance with the Singapore and Hong Kong Declarations;
    • Indication of whether or not the research was funded and what the source was;
    • Formal declaration of the existence or not of possible conflicts of interest in the conduct and communication of the research in all articles;
    • Application for the submission of an opinion of an ethics committee recognized by the Health Authority or national health council (or similar body) of each country for studies involving human and animal experimentation;
    • Requirement for registration of clinical trials in the Data Providers of the WHO’s International Clinical Trial Registration Platform (ICTRP), ReBEC (Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials) or similar, when approved by the national ethics committee and before the selection of research participants. The name of the database, acronym, and/or number of the clinical trial shall appear at the end of the abstract of the article and in the materials and methods section;
    • Requirement to record systematic reviews in the PROSPERO database (International Prospective Registry of Systematic Reviews), preferably before the start of the procedures for applying the eligibility criteria. The database registration number should appear at the end of the abstract of the article and in the materials and methods section;
  • Adoption of international guidelines and standards for the presentation of research results for each type of study, according to the recommendation of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the EQUATOR network (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of Health Research):
    • Randomized controlled trial – CONSORT
    • Observational studies – STROBE
    • Diagnostic / prognostic studies – STARD or TRIPOD
    • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses – PRISMA or MOOSE
    • Study protocols – SPIRIT or PRISMA-P
    • Case reports – CARE
    • Guidelines / protocols of clinical practice – AGREE or RIGHT
    • Qualitative studies – COREQ (checklist) or SRQR
    • Pre-clinical animal studies – ARRIVE
    • Quality improvement studies – SQUIRE or Economic Assessment – CHEERS
  • Accordance of the manuscript with the best practices of open science:
    • Indicate acceptance criteria for manuscripts previously deposited on a recognized preprints server with DOI registration and server name;
    • Guidelines on the identification, referencing, and availability of data used and generated by the research, data processing program codes, and other materials underlying the manuscript text for evaluation, reuse, and reproducibility purposes.
  • Guidance on the assignment of copyrights;
  • When adopted, inform the value of publication fees and exemption options. LILACS recommends reviewing and updating the Authors’ Instructions at least once a year, always informing the date of the last update.
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