About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The journal has been published since 2003 and is known as Sovremennaya Pediatriya. In 2019, starting from No. 4, the publication was renamed to “MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE".

The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE is a leading peer-reviewed open access national medical journal that advances innovative and contemporary pediatric research and serves as a practical guide for pediatricians and other medical professions associated with pediatric healthcare. The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE is an official scientific and practical journal of the Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, printed eight times a year, in February, March, April, May, September, October November and December.

The Journal seeks to publish high quality original articles that are immediately applicable to practice (basic science, translational research, evidence-based medicine), results of original research, clinical observations (brief clinical case reports), special featured articles in the field of pediatrics, as broadly defined, invited medical reviews, summaries of workshops, conferences, symposiums, congress, expert commentaries, novel insights into clinical and academic pediatric medicine related to every aspect of child health. The content of the journal also includes related fields such as nutrition, pediatric surgery, public health, child health services, basic sciences, psychology, psychiatry, education, sociology, and nursing. The languages of the journal are Ukrainian, English and Russian.

The journal is based on independent and unbiased double-blinded peer-reviewed principles. Only unpublished papers that are not under review for publication elsewhere can be submitted. The authors are responsible for the scientific content of the material to be published. The Journal reserves the right to request any research materials on which the paper is based. Printed copies of the journal are distributed during scientific and practical activities (live events), presented in all leading scientific institutions and medical libraries in Ukraine. All articles are also available in PDF, HTML format on the journal website (URL: https://med-expert.com.ua/en/publishing-activity-en/sovremennaya-pediatriya-ukraine-en/), websites of National Library of Ukraine (URL), Ukrainian Scientific Citation Index (URL: http://nbuviap.gov.ua/bpnu/index.php?page_sites=journals) and are made freely available immediately upon publication. The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE is published in Ukrainian and English 8 times a year.

The Editorial Board of the Modern Pediatrics. Ukraine and the Publisher adheres to the principles of the International Council of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, http://icmje.org/), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME, http://www.wame.org/), the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE, https://publicationethics.org/ ).

Mission

The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE’s mission is to distribute original medical data of the highest value for a diverse audience of those that participate in pediatric care: practicing and general pediatricians, academic general and subspecialty physicians and clinicians, researchers, educators, pharmacists, social workers, nutritionists and others. Supporting and continuously deepening knowledge and practical skills of pediatric healthcare professionals, the journal contribute to improving the quality of care and the health of infants, children, and adolescents.

The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE believes that high quality and ethical publication will lead to the progressive development of medical sciences and healthcare in Ukraine.

Peer Review Process

Criteria for publication

Journal receives many more submissions than it can publish in each edition. It is therefore important that manuscripts are critically evaluated for compliance with the following criteria:

Strong evidence for the conclusions that are drawn
Novelty (abstracts, meeting proceedings, preprints are not considered to compromise novelty)
Broad clinical significance
Importance to the specific field

Review process

All submitted manuscripts are read by editorial staff. Only those articles that seem most likely to meet criteria for publication are sent for formal review. Those papers judged by the editors to be of insufficient general interest or otherwise inappropriate are rejected promptly without external review. The journal practices double-blind peer review, means that neither authors nor referees do not know each other. The average time of the reviewing process is 4–6 months.

Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to the journal are sent for formal review, typically to 2 reviewers appointed by editors/editorial board. The referees are asked for their opinion about the suitability of the paper for publication. Based on their advice, the editors decide to:

- accept the manuscript, with or without minor revision

- invite the authors to revise the manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached

- or reject the manuscript, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems.

The result of the review is based on offered recommendations of referees. The final decision to publish the article is made by the editor-in-chief/editorial board to publish the article.

In case of approval of the manuscript for publication after review, it is sent for further processing and publication. If necessary, the manuscript is sent to the author for revision in accordance with the recommendations of the reviewer(s). Revised manuscript sent for re-review. In case of manuscript rejection for publication, the author receives information that the article is not accepted for publication with motivated refusal. The manuscript is not returned to the author.

Selecting referees

Referee selection is critical to the review process, and the journal choice is based on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations, and our previous experience with the referee. The journal avoids using referees who are chronically slow, sloppy, too harsh or too lenient. We invite referees and only on acceptance of the invitation will a referee have access to the full paper.

Proposals for the selection of referees can be made by editor-in-chief, deputy editor-in-chief or editorial staff during initial review of the article. Editorial staff normally contact potential referees before sending them manuscripts to review and only on acceptance of the invitation referee will have access to the full paper. Referees should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such.

In the review process, there participate qualified independent referees as well as members of the editorial board who are experts in the field of submitted manuscript. Journal database contains the list of reviewers and members of editorial board who participate in review process.

Upon receiving a manuscript to referee

To avoid unnecessary delays in processing manuscripts, please do the following immediately upon receipt of a manuscript for review:

check thoroughly the deadline to ensure that there have been no misunderstandings
in regarding to timing, contact the editorial office immediately if you anticipate any difficulties
read the editor's letter carefully and be sure to note any points specific to the manuscript that the editor may have requested your opinion on
skim the manuscript and consider whether there might be a conflict of interest for you (with the authors, their institution, their funding sources) and whether you can judge the article impartially
consider whether the topic seems to fit the scope of the journal and is likely to be of sufficient general interest for publication.

Confidentiality

Referees should treat the review process as being strictly confidential and not to discuss the manuscript with anyone not directly involved in the review.

It is acceptable to consult with colleagues, but they should be identified to the editors. Consulting with experts from outside the referee’s own institution may be acceptable, but again editors should be informed before doing so, to avoid involving anyone who may have been excluded by the authors.

Anonymity

Referees should, as a rule, not disclose their identities to the authors or to other colleagues since they may be asked to comment on the criticisms of other referees and may then find it difficult to be objective. Should they feel strongly about making their identities known to the authors, they should do so via the editor. Strongly disapproved of any attempt by authors to determine the identities of referees or to confront them, and encourage referees to neither confirm nor deny any speculation in this regard.

Writing the report

The main purpose of referee reports is to provide the editors with the information that they need to reach a decision, but they should also instruct the authors on how to strengthen their manuscript if revision is a possibility. Referees are asked to submit both confidential comments to the editor and those that can be directly transmitted to the authors.

While transmitting comments to the authors, referees are asked to maintain a positive and impartial, but critical, attitude in evaluating manuscripts. Criticisms should remain dispassionate; offensive language is not acceptable. As far as possible, a negative report should explain to the authors the weaknesses of their manuscript, so that they can understand the basis for a decision to ask for revision or to reject the manuscript. The report for authors should not include a recommendation regarding publication, which is regarded as confidential information since the final decision regarding acceptance, revision or rejection rests with the editor.

Timing

The Journal is committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication as efficiency in this process is a valuable service both to our authors and the scientific community as a whole. Therefore referees are asked to respond promptly or inform editorial office if they anticipate a significant delay, which allows the journal to keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternative referees.

Conflicts of interest

In order to ensure fairness in the referee process, we try to avoid referees who: have recent or ongoing collaborations with the authors, have commented on drafts of the manuscript, are in direct competition, have a history of dispute with the authors, or have a financial interest in the outcome. Because it is not possible for the editors to know of all possible biases, however, we ask referees to draw our attention to anything that might affect their report, including commercial interests, and to decline to referee in cases where they feel unable to be objective. We do not find it necessary to exclude referees who have reviewed a paper for another journal; the fact that two journals have independently identified a particular person as well qualified to referee a paper does not decrease the validity of her/his opinion in our view.

Publication policy and ethical considerations

In spite of the journal best efforts to identify breaches of publication policy or ethical conduct, such as plagiarism or author conflict of interest, the referees who are more familiar with the field are more likely to recognise such problems and should alert the editors to any potential problems in this regard.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supporting a greater global exchange of knowledge. Open Access Policy is based on rules of Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/

Articles of the journal have free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles.

The reproduction and distribution of the articles can be performed provided that their use is not for commercial purposes, and a proper credit is given to the authors as well as the publisher to be properly acknowledged and cited.

Publication in the journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 international license (СС BY-NC)

Editorial process

All manuscripts submitted for publication are strictly reviewed for their originality, methodology, importance, quality, ethical nature and suitability for the journal. The MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE uses a common standard scheme for the evaluation process. The editor-in-chief has full authority over the editorial and scientific content of the journal and the timing of publication of the content.

The whole editorial process consists of the successive steps. Immediately after submission, technical review is carried out by editorial staff (editor-in-chief, associate editors or editorial board member) to assess suitability of the manuscript to the journal: topicality and importance of the subject, the clarity of presentation, and relevance to the audience of the journal in question. Submissions that fully do not conform to the requirements of the publication will be rejected. In cases where only minor revisions are recommended, the author is usually requested to revise the paper. Authors whose articles are accepted will be notified accordingly and the article will undergo further processing. Technical reviews are typically processed in a few days after submission.

Any submitted manuscripts are treated as confidential documents. Editor(s) and editorial staff are obliged not to disclose any information about a submitted paper to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate. The journal operates a rigorous peer-review process. Review is performed on a double-blind basis – the identities of peer reviewers and authors are kept confidential. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as authorized by the Editor-In-Chief.

The reviewing process is double-blind for the journal. At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Proposals for the selection of reviewers can be made by editor-in chief, deputy editor-in-chief or editorial staff during initial review of the article. In the evaluation process, there participate qualified independent reviews as well as members of the editorial board who are experts in the field of the submitted article. Journal database contains the list of reviewers including members of editorial board.

To assist academic editors, editorial staff of the journal handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editors. Reviewers are given three – four weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within one week. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request.

The peer review is followed by a final acceptance/rejection decision by the Editor-in-Chief, or another academic editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. When making an editorial decision the Editor-in-Chief or academic editor checks the suitability of selected reviewers, adequacy of reviewer comments and author response, overall scientific quality of the paper. The editor can select the follows: accept, reject, ask author for revision of the paper, ask for an additional reviewer. If there is any suspicion that a paper may contain plagiarism, the editorial office will check using plagiarism detection software to screen the manuscript. Peer reviewers complete a referee report form to provide general comments to the editor and specific comments to the author. Editors-in-Chief are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision, for the benefit of the authors.

The publication process after submission may take 4 to 6 months. However, all accepted manuscripts are assigned with a DOI number following their acceptance. The journal performs thorough editorial processing of all manuscripts, including language, copy editing and conversion to PDF or XML.

The journal «MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE» is a member of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and follows its procedures for dealing with potentially unethical behaviour by authors, reviewers or editors.

Publication ethics

Bioethics

For all research studies the journal's policy requires an approval of research protocols by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with international agreements “WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects (last updated: October 2013, Fortaleza, Brazil)” , "Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals (8th edition, 2011)" and/or “International Guiding Principles for Biomedical Research Involving Animals (2012)”.

When reporting research involving human data, authors should indicate whether the procedures were conducted in accordance with bioethical standards and assessed by the local ethics committee or national bioethics commission. The same applies to researcher involving laboratory animals. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether all necessary procedures were carried out in accordance with national and international standards for the care and use of laboratory animals.

If the submitted manuscript does not include ethics committee approval, it will be reviewed according to COPE's guideline (Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations). If the study should have ethical approval, authors will be asked to provide ethical approval in order to proceed the review process. If they cannot provide ethical approval, their manuscript will be rejected.

If the study does not need ethics committee approval after the editorial board’s review, the authors will be asked to provide an ethics committee approval or a document given by a related independent committee that indicates the study does not need ethics committee approval according to the research integrity rules in their country. If the authors provide either an approval or a document showing that ethics approval is not needed, the review process can be continued. If the authors cannot provide either documents, the manuscript may be rejected.

Approval by a local ethics committee does not preclude editors from forming their own judgment whether the conduct of the research was appropriate.

Informed consent policy and confidentiality

For articles concerning experimental research on humans, a statement should be included that shows informed consent of patients and volunteers was obtained following a detailed explanation of the procedures that they may undergo. The journal may request a copy of the Ethics Committee Approval received from the relevant authority. Informed consent must also be obtained for case reports.

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication.

Patient consent should be written and archived with the authors at the institution where research was conducted. The authors provide the journal with a written statement that attests that they have received and archived written patient consent. The requirement for informed consent should be included in the journal's instructions for authors. When informed consent has been obtained it should be indicated in the published article.

The manuscript must include in the section “Materials and methods” a statement identifying the institutional local ethics committee approving the experiments, including any relevant details For experiments involving human subjects, authors must identify the local ethics committee approving the experiments, and include with their submission of statement confirming that informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

Conflict of interest policy

All participants in the peer-review and publication process (authors, referees, editors, members of editorial board) must disclose to the editor-in-chief any conflict of interest related to personal, family, financial, political or religious issues as well as any competing interest while fulﬁlling their roles in the process of article review and publication, and must disclose all relationships that could be considered as potential conﬂicts of interest. If editorial staff, referees or editors have a conflict of interest and/or they are not appropriate to participate in editorial processing for a given manuscript, then they should resign from the assignment.

The Editorial Board members of the journal, who treat submissions and recommend their opinions to the Editor-in-chief may also submit their own manuscripts to the journal because all of them are leading researchers and scientists. However, they cannot participate at any stage on the editorial decision of their manuscripts in order to minimize any possible bias. They will be treated like any other author, and if any final acceptance of such manuscripts can only be made by the positive recommendation of at least two external reviewers, then they should not be members of decision-making Editorial Board.

When authors submit a manuscript of any type or format they are responsible for disclosing all ﬁnancial and personal relationships that might bias or be seen to bias their work. Authors must declare any such conflict in the cover letter accompanying the manuscript and in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript itself. The corresponding author or all authors should be asked to sign the manuscript on the last page regarding potential conflicts of interest at the time of acceptance. Where authors have no conflict of interests, the statement should read “The author(s) declare(s) that they have no conflict of interests”. This policy applies to all submitted research manuscripts and review material.

All necessary information regarding the process of a manuscript can be obtained from the editorial office. However, the names of the handling editor and the reviewers are not given to the author(s). Due to the double-blinded review principles of the MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE, the names of authors and reviewers are not known to the each other.

Plagiarism policy

The journal MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE strives for the highest standards of research and publication ethics, and does not allow any form of plagiarism. All submitted manuscripts are screened with plagiarism software at least two times during the evaluation process to detect instances of overlapping and similar text

The Journal defines plagiarism as a case in which a manuscript reproduces another work having with 10% and more similarity scores and without attribution. If evidence of plagiarism is found before/after acceptance or after publication of the article, the author will be offered a chance for rebuttal. If the arguments are not found to be satisfactory, the manuscript will be retracted and the author sanctioned from publishing articles for a period to be determined by the responsible Editor(s).

In any case while an ethical misconduct is suspected, the editorial of the journal will act in accordance with the relevant international rules of publication and research ethics (COPE guidelines, ICMJE Recommendations, CSE White Paper on Publication Ethics, WAME resources, WMA policies and ORI).

Publication costs

All articles published for full open access without any fee by authors. The publisher covers all costs – copyediting, typesetting, long-term archiving, and journal management. No submission charges of manuscript are requested.

Sources of Support

Group of Companies Med Expert, LLC

Journal History

The journal has been published since 2003 and is known as Sovremennaya Pediatriya. In 2019, starting from No. 4(100), the publication was renamed to “MODERN PEDIATRICS. UKRAINE".

The journal covers the results of current scientific researches on the diagnosis and treatment methods in modern world pediatrics to improve the quality of the medical care of infants, children and adolescents in Ukraine.