Article Types

All submissions must be relevant to the journal's Focus and Scope and must demonstrate originality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, analytical depth, scientific relevance, and transparent reporting. Manuscripts must not have been published previously and must not be under consideration by another journal.

Authors must select the correct article type during submission. A manuscript may be returned for technical revision or declined during editorial screening when the selected article type does not correspond to the study design, manuscript structure, scientific content, or reporting approach.

1. Original Research Article
An Original Research Article presents complete findings from an empirical study using quantitative, qualitative, experimental, observational, simulation-based, or mixed-methods approaches. The manuscript must address a clearly defined research question and provide a substantive contribution to emergency medicine, critical care, pre-hospital care, disaster management, or related disciplines within the journal scope.

Eligible research approaches

  • Emergency department (ED) and pre-hospital care studies
  • Critical care and intensive care unit (ICU) observational and interventional studies
  • Disaster preparedness, response, and recovery studies
  • Mass-casualty incident (MCI) and triage management studies
  • Trauma and acute care registry analyses
  • Cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control studies in emergency settings
  • Randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental studies in acute care
  • Simulation-based research in emergency and disaster education
  • Qualitative studies exploring emergency, critical care, or disaster experiences
  • Mixed-methods studies
  • Health policy, health-system, and operational research in emergency services
  • Psychiatric, maternal, and neonatal emergency studies
 
Required manuscript structure
  • Title
  • Structured abstract
  • Keywords
  • Introduction
  • Methods
  • Results
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments, when applicable
  • Author contributions
  • Funding statement
  • Conflict-of-interest declaration
  • Ethics approval and informed-consent statement, when applicable
  • Data-availability statement
  • References
  • Tables, figure legends, and supplementary materials, when applicable
 
Methods reporting

The Methods section must provide sufficient information to permit scientific evaluation, reproducibility, and, where applicable, replication. Authors should describe the study design, setting (e.g., specific ED, ICU, pre-hospital environment, or disaster site), study period, participants or data sources, eligibility criteria, sampling procedures, sample-size calculation, variables, interventions or exposures, outcomes, measurement instruments, validity and reliability procedures, data collection, quality control, analytical methods, statistical software and version, and ethical approval.

For disaster and emergency simulation studies, authors must clearly describe the scenario design, fidelity level, and participant roles. Statistical methods must be appropriate for the study objectives and data structure. Authors should report measures of effect, uncertainty estimates, confidence intervals, assumptions, missing-data procedures, and model diagnostics when relevant. Reliance solely on p-values without effect estimates and scientific interpretation is discouraged.

2. Case Report and Case Series
A Case Report or Case Series presents a detailed description of a rare, novel, or highly educational emergency, critical care, or disaster-related clinical scenario. Given the fast-paced nature of emergency medicine, case reports must offer substantial educational value, highlight a novel diagnostic or therapeutic approach in an acute setting, or describe an unusual presentation of a life-threatening condition.

Minimum case report requirements
  • A clear description of the acute, emergency, or critical care presentation
  • Relevant patient history, physical examination, and initial triage or emergency assessment
  • Diagnostic workup and acute management interventions
  • Clinical course, outcomes, and follow-up (if applicable)
  • A focused discussion highlighting the novelty, educational value, and implications for emergency or disaster practitioners
  • Strict adherence to patient anonymity and confidentiality
 
3. Review Article

A Review Article synthesizes and critically evaluates existing evidence relevant to emergency medicine, critical care, pre-hospital services, disaster management, or acute clinical pharmacy. Review manuscripts must use a transparent and reproducible methodology, present a clearly defined review question, and explain how evidence was identified, selected, evaluated, and synthesized.

Eligible review approaches
  • Systematic review
  • Systematic review and meta-analysis
  • Scoping review
  • Umbrella review
  • Rapid review with a clearly justified methodology (highly relevant for emerging disaster or pandemic contexts)
  • Other structured evidence-synthesis designs approved by the editors
 
Minimum review requirements
  • A clearly formulated review objective or research question
  • A justified review design
  • Explicit eligibility criteria
  • Clearly identified information sources
  • A complete and reproducible search strategy
  • A transparent study-selection process
  • Clearly described data-extraction procedures
  • Critical appraisal or risk-of-bias assessment when applicable
  • Appropriate qualitative or quantitative evidence-synthesis methods
  • A study-selection flow diagram
  • Compliance with the relevant PRISMA guideline or extension
  • Protocol registration information when available

Narrative reviews that do not explain their search, selection, and synthesis methods are generally not considered unless specifically invited by the editorial team.

4. Reporting Standards
Authors must prepare manuscripts in accordance with the reporting guideline appropriate to the study design. The relevant checklist and flow diagram should be submitted as supplementary files when required.

  • CONSORT for randomized controlled trials
  • STROBE for observational studies
  • PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses
  • PRISMA-ScR for scoping reviews
  • CARE for case reports and case series
  • COREQ or SRQR for qualitative studies
  • STARD for diagnostic-accuracy studies
  • TRIPOD for prediction-model studies (e.g., triage or prognosis models)
  • CHEERS for health-economic evaluations
  • SQUIRE for healthcare-quality-improvement studies
  • TIDieR for detailed reporting of interventions (e.g., specific emergency protocols or disaster drills)

 

5. Research Ethics and Publication Integrity
Research involving human participants, identifiable personal data, biological specimens, or animals must comply with applicable ethical standards and receive approval from an authorized ethics committee before the study begins. The manuscript must state the name of the approving institution, approval number, approval date, and informed-consent procedures.

For emergency and critical care research where patients are incapacitated or in life-threatening situations, authors must clearly state how ethical approval was obtained regarding deferred consent, waiver of consent, or exception from informed consent, in accordance with local and international regulations. Retrospective studies using anonymized emergency department or disaster registry data must include a formal ethics waiver or approval statement.

Clinical trials must be registered in a publicly accessible trial registry before participant enrollment. Authors must disclose all sources of funding, institutional support, financial relationships, and nonfinancial interests. Authorship must reflect substantial scholarly contributions and comply with accepted international authorship criteria (e.g., ICMJE).

 
6. General Writing Requirements
  • The manuscript must be written in clear, concise, and academically appropriate English.
  • The title must accurately represent the study design, population, emergency/critical care intervention, or principal topic.
  • The abstract must accurately summarize the purpose, methods, principal results, and conclusion.
  • Keywords should use recognized scientific or indexing terminology (e.g., MeSH terms related to emergency medicine, critical care, or disasters).
  • The Introduction should establish the scientific context, research gap, rationale, and study objective within the emergency or disaster framework.
  • The Results section must present findings objectively and without unnecessary interpretation.
  • The Discussion should interpret the findings in relation to previous emergency/critical care evidence, clinical or operational implications, strengths, and limitations.
  • The Conclusion must be supported directly by the results and must not overstate causality, effectiveness, or generalizability.
  • Tables and figures must be self-explanatory, appropriately numbered, and cited in the manuscript text.
  • Abbreviations must be defined at first use and used consistently (e.g., ED, ICU, EMS, MCI, CPR).
  • Generic names should be used for medicines unless a trade name is scientifically necessary.
  • International System of Units (SI) should be used wherever applicable.
  • References must be relevant, accurate, traceable, and formatted according to the journal requirements.
  • Authors must verify all references, digital object identifiers, statistical values, and factual statements before submission.
 
7. Manuscripts Generally Not Considered
  • Manuscripts outside the current Focus and Scope (e.g., routine chronic disease management without an acute, emergency, or critical care component).
  • Routine case reports without a substantial educational, novel, or public-health contribution to emergency or disaster medicine.
  • Community-service reports or general health promotion activities without a defined emergency/disaster research design.
  • Incomplete studies or preliminary reports without adequate scientific justification.
  • Fragmented publication or unnecessary division of one study into multiple manuscripts.
  • Purely descriptive manuscripts without sufficient analytical or scholarly contribution.
  • Studies with inadequate methodological information.
  • Reviews without a transparent evidence-search and study-selection method.
  • Manuscripts without adequate ethical documentation when ethical review is required.
  • Manuscripts with unverifiable, fabricated, manipulated, duplicated, or substantially inconsistent data.
  • Manuscripts containing plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, undisclosed competing interests, or redundant publication.
  • Manuscripts that make causal claims unsupported by the study design.
  • Manuscripts whose conclusions are not supported by the reported findings.

Before preparing and submitting a manuscript, authors should review the Focus and Scope, the Author Guidelines, the applicable reporting guideline, and all submission requirements. Failure to comply with the journal requirements may result in the manuscript being returned for correction or declined during editorial screening.