Call for Papers

Why submit to CJNCP?

  • Practice-first impact: Editorial guidance and reviewer feedback focus on clinical transferability, not just statistical significance.
  • Open access reach: Articles are freely available to clinicians, educators, and students worldwide, supporting equitable knowledge use.
  • Transparency: Clear policies on ethics, data availability, authorship, and corrections strengthen trust in your work.
  • Discoverability: Article-level metadata and persistent URLs for assets support indexing and long-term preservation.

Before submitting, review Aims & Scope, Submission Guidelines, Peer Review Policy, Plagiarism Policy, and Licensing Policy.

Topics we are seeking

We welcome manuscripts across the care continuum and lifespan. Submissions should express a clear clinical problem and show how findings inform practice, training, or policy. Representative areas include:

Representative themes

  • Safety & Quality: Early warning scores, sepsis bundles, pressure injury prevention, medication reconciliation, fall risk mitigation.
  • Patient Experience & Communication: Shared decision-making, teach-back, health literacy, culturally safe care, trauma-informed practice.
  • Clinical Pathways: Enhanced recovery, chronic disease self-management, palliative symptom control, transitions of care.
  • Maternal–Child & Neonatal: Breastfeeding support, thermoregulation, neonatal pain assessment, family-centered rounds.
  • Mental Health & Substance Use: Screening and brief interventions, therapeutic communication, suicide prevention protocols.
  • Education & Workforce: Preceptorship models, simulation, transition-to-practice, staffing models, moral distress, wellbeing.
  • Informatics & Digital Health: Clinical decision support, telehealth nursing, documentation quality, algorithmic fairness.
  • Community & Public Health: Vaccination programs, school nursing, home care, occupational health, disaster readiness.

We especially encourage studies from low-resource and rural settings, as well as co-produced research with patients, families, and community partners.

Article types considered

Original Research

Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies with explicit implications for practice. Clearly define outcomes, context, and limitations. For implementation/improvement, report fidelity and adaptation, measures, and sustainability.

Reviews & Syntheses

Systematic, scoping, rapid reviews, and meta-analyses that follow design-appropriate guidance (e.g., PRISMA family). Include a concise “Implications for Practice” section.

Practice Innovations & Case Reports

Structured reports that protect privacy and secure consent, with reflective analysis mapping to clinical frameworks and broader applicability.

Protocols, Methods, & Instruments

Design papers, validation studies, and protocols with clear value to nursing teams; describe feasibility, training, and resource needs.

Perspectives & Reflective Practice

Ethically grounded reflections that integrate experience and evidence, highlighting decisions, trade-offs, and safeguards in complex care.

How to prepare your manuscript

  • Reporting guidelines: Use CONSORT, STROBE, COREQ, SQUIRE, or other design-appropriate standards. For reviews, follow PRISMA family guidance.
  • Clinical utility: Add a brief “Implications for Practice” box and, where helpful, an implementation checklist or decision aid.
  • Ethics & consent: Provide IRB/ethics approval or exemption rationale and describe consent procedures. For case material, secure consent and de-identify content.
  • Data transparency: Include a data availability statement; share de-identified data, instruments, or code in a trusted repository when permitted.
  • Equity & accessibility: Describe recruitment, representation, language access, and accommodations; ensure tables have headers, images have alt text, and color is not the only cue.
  • Integrity: Use similarity checking, cite sources accurately, and avoid redundant publication. Disclose funding and competing interests.

How to submit

  1. Review Submission Guidelines & Manuscript Preparation and ensure your files follow the required structure.
  2. Create or sign in to your author account via the journal’s submission portal (/submissions).
  3. Provide complete metadata: title, abstract, keywords, author names and affiliations, corresponding author contact, funding, conflicts of interest, ethics approvals, and data availability.
  4. Upload manuscript and supplementary files (figures, tables, checklists, appendices). Ensure figure captions and table legends are included.
  5. Suggest 3–5 potential reviewers (optional). Do not include close collaborators, recent coauthors, or individuals with conflicts.
  6. Confirm agreement with journal policies on ethics, privacy, licensing, and plagiarism.

Article Processing Charges (if applicable) and waiver information are available on the APC and Waiver Policy pages.

Special Issues & Thematic Collections

CJNCP periodically curates Special Issues that synthesize emerging or high-priority clinical topics. Proposals should include a theme overview, rationale, proposed article types, guest editor(s), and a plan for rigorous peer review. All submissions to Special Issues follow the same policies and ethics requirements as regular issues.

Proposing a Special Issue

  • Describe the clinical problem, proposed scope, and target audience.
  • Outline anticipated article types and potential contributors.
  • Identify at least two Guest Editors with complementary expertise and no conflicts.
  • Explain how equity, diversity, and patient partnership will be embedded in the collection.

Peer review and editorial decisions

All submissions undergo initial editorial assessment for fit with Aims & Scope, ethical compliance, and baseline methodological soundness. Eligible manuscripts proceed to double-blind peer review, where reviewers evaluate rigor, clinical relevance, ethical safeguards, and clarity. Editors synthesize recommendations and guide revisions to strengthen clinical utility and transparency.

Appeals and complaints follow a formal route that supports timely and fair resolution; see the Grievances Policy for process details.

Submission checklist (author self-audit)

Item Confirmation
Study aligns with CJNCP’s clinical focus and audience. Yes / Needs work
Reporting guideline followed and attached (e.g., CONSORT, STROBE, COREQ, SQUIRE, PRISMA). Yes / Needs work
Implications for Practice box included; implementation steps described where relevant. Yes / Needs work
IRB/ethics approval or exemption stated; consent procedures described. Yes / Needs work
Data availability statement provided; repository links if applicable. Yes / Needs work
Conflicts of interest and funding disclosed for all authors. Yes / Needs work
Figures/tables correctly labeled; alt text and table headers included. Yes / Needs work
Similarity check performed; references complete and accurate. Yes / Needs work
All required metadata completed in the submission portal. Yes / Needs work

Ethics, licensing, and integrity

Submissions must comply with research ethics, privacy protections, and responsible authorship. The journal’s Plagiarism Policy outlines similarity screening and expectations for originality and proper citation. The Licensing Policy explains the open license applied to published articles and how third-party materials may be used. When concerns arise, the Grievances Policy describes how they are assessed and resolved.

Frequently asked questions

Do you consider feasibility or pilot studies?

Yes—when the clinical question is important and design choices are transparent. Clarify feasibility endpoints, decision rules, and learning for future work.

Is qualitative research welcome?

Absolutely. Demonstrate rigor and reflexivity, and connect insights to actionable implications for care teams.

Can I submit a guideline developed at my institution?

Yes, if evidence appraisal methods, stakeholder involvement, and implementation/audit outcomes are documented and generalizable.

What about data sharing?

Provide a data availability statement. When permitted, share de-identified datasets, instruments, or code in a trusted repository with persistent identifiers.

Where can I learn about APCs or waivers?

See the Article Processing Charges and Waiver Policy pages for details.