Submission & Technical Pre-Check

The corresponding author submits all required files through OJS. The editorial office verifies administrative and technical completeness before scientific evaluation begins.

• Correct article category and conformity with the Author Guidelines.
• Blinded manuscript, Title Page, Cover Letter, Author Declarations, and required supplementary files.
• Mandatory Turnitin Similarity Report corresponding to the submitted manuscript version.
• Completeness of metadata, affiliations, author order, email addresses, and ORCID iDs where available.
• Basic formatting, language, references, tables, figures, and file readability.

Editorial Screening / Desk Review

The Editor-in-Chief or designated handling editor evaluates whether the manuscript is suitable for external peer review. This screening considers scientific relevance, scope, originality, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and fundamental methodological adequacy.

• Fit with IMCHP's focus and scope.
• Clarity of research objective, novelty, and potential contribution.
• Appropriateness of study design and analytical approach.
• Research ethics approval, informed consent, trial/protocol registration, or other requirements where applicable.
• Compliance with relevant reporting guidelines.

Manuscripts that are clearly outside scope, methodologically unsuitable, ethically deficient, incomplete, or insufficiently developed may be declined without external review.

Double-Blind Peer Review

Manuscripts that pass editorial screening are normally sent to independent reviewers with appropriate subject and/or methodological expertise. IMCHP applies a double-blind peer-review model, in which author and reviewer identities are concealed from one another wherever reasonably possible.

• Scientific originality and relevance.
• Theoretical or conceptual foundation where applicable.
• Methodological rigor, sampling, measurement, and analytical quality.
• Validity of results and appropriateness of interpretation.
• Clinical, professional, educational, health-system, or policy relevance.
• Research ethics, reporting transparency, and reference quality.

Reviewer recommendations may include Accept, Minor Revision, Major Revision, or Reject. Reviewers provide recommendations; the final decision remains with the editorial team.

Author Revision & Response to Reviewers

When revision is requested, authors must carefully address editorial and reviewer comments and resubmit the revised manuscript through OJS within the deadline specified in the decision letter.

• Submit a clean revised manuscript and, where requested, a marked or highlighted version.
• Provide a detailed point-by-point Response to Reviewers.
• Indicate where each revision has been made in the manuscript.
• Where a suggestion is not adopted, provide a concise scientific justification.
• Major revisions may be returned to the original reviewers or additional reviewers for further evaluation.

Editorial Decision, Acceptance & LoA

The Editor evaluates the revised manuscript, reviewer reports, author responses, ethical requirements, and overall scientific quality before issuing a final editorial decision.

• A manuscript is accepted only when the scientific and editorial requirements have been satisfactorily addressed.
• A formal Letter of Acceptance (LoA) is issued after the final acceptance decision.
• Where an Article Processing Charge (APC) applies, payment instructions are provided after acceptance.
• APC payment does not determine or influence the peer-review or acceptance decision.

Copyediting, LaTeX Production & Author Proof

Accepted manuscripts enter the IMCHP production workflow. The editorial production team prepares the article for publication using the journal's standardized LaTeX typesetting system.

• Language, consistency, and copyediting checks.
• Professional LaTeX typesetting and journal-standard layout.
• Verification of references, DOI information, tables, figures, captions, and metadata.
• Preparation of the publication proof.
• Corresponding-author proof review and correction of production errors.

DOI Registration, Online Publication & Dissemination

After proof approval and final production checks, the article is prepared for online publication in the assigned IMCHP issue.

• Final PDF and article metadata are published on the journal website.
• A DOI is registered/activated for the published article.
• Bibliographic metadata are deposited or distributed to relevant scholarly infrastructure and indexing/discovery services according to journal arrangements.
• The article becomes openly accessible under the journal's applicable Open Access and licensing policy.
• Authors are encouraged to disseminate the published article responsibly through academic networks, institutional repositories where permitted, and scholarly communication channels.