Author Guidelines

Aims and Scope

Annals of Behavioral Medicine, the Society of Behavioral Medicine's flagship journal, publishes original empirical articles on behavioral medicine and the integration of biological, psychosocial, and behavioral factors and principles.

Annals of Behavioral Medicine seeks to present the best theoretically-driven, evidence-based work in the field of behavioral medicine. It publishes well-designed research on the psychosocial and behavioral risk factors for medical illness; factors that affect disease progression, and behavioral medicine interventions to improve health, prevent illness progression, and enhance treatment. It explores interactions among psychological, biobehavioral, social, and cultural factors in physical health and illness, and the translation of that research to practice and policy. The journal publishes research across the broad spectrum of behavioral medicine, including health-behavior relationships, the prevention of illness and the promotion of health, the effects of illness on the self and others, the effectiveness of novel interventions, identification of biobehavioral mechanisms, and the influence of social factors on health. Inclusion of data on the relationship of these factors to indicators of physical health or health behaviors is essential. We welcome experimental, non-experimental, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies as well as implementation and dissemination research, systematic literature reviews, and meta-analyses.

Studies that focus exclusively on mental health, substance abuse, or wellness in physically healthy, low-risk populations, and that lack direct relevance to physical health and medical illness, are generally considered to be outside of the journal's scope. Similarly, studies with low ecological validity (e.g., an experimental laboratory study of attitudes about end-of-life palliative care in a group of healthy undergraduate volunteers) and exploratory studies that are not driven by a clear research question or testable hypothesis are unlikely to be published.

Editorial Office

All correspondence, including questions about submission, should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, Angela D. Bryan ([email protected]).

Types of Articles
Journal Policies and Declarations
Manuscript Submission
Style Guidelines
Appeals Process for Manuscript Submissions
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Instructions for Manuscripts Accepted for Publication
Open Access
- Third-Party Copyright and Open Access
Self-Archiving Policy
Reuse of Oxford University Press Material

Types of Articles

The following types of manuscripts are accepted:

Regular Articles (Full-length manuscript)

The majority of journal pages are devoted to the publication of original empirical articles, such as reports of randomized controlled trials, observational studies, mixed-method studies, or other basic and clinical investigations. Methodology articles that are specific to the field of behavioral medicine will be considered.

Manuscripts should clearly state the research objective or hypothesis, methods (including statistical methods), the essential features of any interventions, the outcome measures, and the results of the investigation, which should be discussed in the context of other published literature. Authors are encouraged to articulate, whenever possible, the translational potential of scientific findings. Submissions should not exceed 30 double-spaced pages typed in 12-point font with 1-inch margins, inclusive of all parts of the manuscript, including the title page, structured abstract, text, references, tables, and figures.

Replication studies

Annals encourages the submission of replication studies. If the work replicates or extends previous studies, the Introduction and Discussion sections should disclose the study's purpose (i.e., to confirm, disconfirm, or extend previous research) and not overstate minor innovations or superficially novel features. Authors of replication studies should address three questions in their cover letter: 1) How the focus and content fit the journal (as is done with all papers; and 2) how the particular replication question is one of priority for behavioral medicine science, i.e., what the degree of contribution is. The second point should also be made in the manuscript’s introduction.

Qualitative Research

The journal will consider qualitative studies that fill an important gap in the research literature. The SRQR or COREQ32 checklist must be appended to all submissions of qualitative research.

Scale Development

Empirical reports on the development of new or substantially modified instruments are considered, but they must make a convincing case for the need for the new instrument in relation to ones that are already in use. The new measure should be evaluated in the population(s) for which it is intended, and modern psychometric methods should be used. Instruments with limited clinical or research utility for behavioral medicine may be better suited for other journals. Annals does not publish translations of measures.

Clinical Trials

Annals of Behavioral Medicine publishes both the primary and secondary findings of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). It does not publish trial protocols. The journal will publish RCTs only if they have been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov or at another recognized registry, even if the study is a pilot study. A complete list of acceptable trial registries can be found via the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. A CONSORT flow chart must be included in the manuscript and the CONSORT checklist must be appended to the manuscript. See http://www.consort-statement.org/

Brief Report

Annals of Behavioral Medicine accepts brief reports of soundly designed research studies of specialized interest that can be effectively communicated in less space than standard-length articles. An author who submits a Brief Report must agree not to submit the full report to another journal. Brief Report submissions should not exceed a total of 15 double-spaced pages, pages typed in 12-point font with 1-inch margins, inclusive of all parts of the manuscript, including the title page, structured abstract, text, references, with up to a total of two tables and/or figures. True to their purpose, Brief Reports should not use electronic supplementary material to present additional analyses, tables or figures.

Pilot research on health-related behavioral interventions, proof-of-concept studies, and feasibility studies may be submitted as Brief Reports. Note that these types of studies should provide findings that would be informative for other investigators (vs. guiding one’s own work) and should not include severely underpowered statistical tests of efficacy hypotheses.

Systematic Review

Systematic literature reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses on current topics are encouraged. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should not exceed 35 double-spaced pages, typed in 12-point font with 1-inch margins, inclusive of all parts of the manuscript, including the title page, structured abstract, text, references, tables, and figures. A PRISMA flow chart must be included in the manuscript and the PRISMA checklist must be appended to the manuscript. See http://www.prisma-statement.org/

Commentary

Commentaries must advance the field by providing a new and/or unique viewpoint on existing problems, fundamental concepts, or prevalent notions. In most cases, commentaries are invited by the Editor-in-Chief. Commentaries are very short articles, of 1000-1500 words. The Commentary may contain up to 5 references, and one table or figure, which all are part of the word count. An abstract (maximum of 250 words) is required for a Commentary, although it does not have to be a structured abstract.

Letter to the Editor

Annals of Behavioral Medicine may occasionally publish Letters to the Editor that offer opinion or interpretation of articles published within the past year in the journal. Letters must include a reference to the article and an abstract, should be limited to 500 words or less, and should not have more than seven references. Potential conflicts of interest related to the article or the authors must be disclosed in the cover letter. Tables and figures should be used only if absolutely necessary. It is customary for letters to be sent to the author(s) of the original work and the authors’ response may be published as a companion to the Letter to the Editor.

All materials are submitted and edited electronically using Editorial Manager. All submissions should be prepared according to the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, with the exception of the References (see below)

Manuscript Length

The manuscript lengths for each type of submission includes all parts of the manuscript, including the title page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures. Authors may request permission to submit longer papers if there is a clear justification for exceeding the page limit. Nonessential materials should be placed in an online-only supplement rather than in the manuscript. Submissions that exceed the page limits will be returned to the author for shortening prior to peer review.

Journal Policies and Declarations

Masked review

The journal uses a double-mask review process. That is, the reviewers do not know the names of the authors and the authors do not know the names of the reviewers. To promote a masked review process, the manuscript file should not include author information such as names, affiliations, contact information, or intervention/program names or acronyms. The manuscript itself should not identify the authors or the study, in the text or in references to text that will make it obvious. For that reference, insert the placeholder [Reference moved for masked review.] Do not include clinical trials registration or pre-registration numbers in the manuscript or in any EQUATOR checklists that are attached. Manuscripts that contain this information will be returned to the authors. (Registration numbers, however, must be included in the cover letter.)

Required Description of Sample Sociodemographic Characteristics (new)

All manuscripts must report a detailed description of the participants’ characteristics, including (but not limited to): gender, race, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status. Please also include any additional relevant characteristics (e.g., medical diagnoses) and demographics (e.g., sexual orientation, gender identify) as appropriate.

This information must be included in the sample description (methods or results section). Mean, standard deviation, and range should be reported for age and SES. Please provide details on the full range of participants’ gender, race, and ethnicity, not just the proportion of the majority group.

Reporting race/ethnicity and gender. Please follow the guidelines in Chapter 5 of the APA Publication Manual (7th edition) when providing information on race/ethnicity and gender orientation. The guidelines are not prescriptive with respect to which identities to measure, but recommends that you use (and when necessary, put in context) terms that are used by the groups or populations you are studying.

Reporting SES: Measures of SES may vary from study to study but may include indicators of individual or neighborhood income, education, wealth, or perceived standing. Additional proxies such as employment type, insurance status, or acceptance of subsidized resources indicative of poverty status may also be used. If such data is unavailable, the authors must provide a clear description for its absence in the cover letter. In studies where data on sociodemographic variables was not collected or is not available, this must be stated in the methods and/or results section. For example, "Information regarding sample SES was not collected [not available]”.

Reporting race and ethnicity. Annals of Behavioral Medicine adheres to and allies with racial and ethnic groups as proper nouns and, therefore, they should be capitalized. Not only does this align with APA and AMA, but also upholds our values of inclusion and empowering marginalized communities. In addition, it reflects responsiveness to these communities and their preference in how they would like to be addressed.

Reporting age. Whenever possible, age should be reported and analyzed as a continuous variable. If the sample is of college students, please label it as a student sample and not “emerging adults” unless the manuscript specifically addresses developmental tasks.

Reporting the dates of data collection (new)

Given how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected health behaviors and health outcomes as well as other historical events that may occur in the future, authors must provide the dates when data were collected in all manuscript submissions.

Reporting of Statistical Tests

Whenever possible, statistical tests should include a reporting of effect sizes with confidence intervals. Authors are encouraged to report the relevant statistical information for both significant and non-significant effects, and to follow the statistical reporting recommendations presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition) and the Journal Article Reporting standards (JARS) for quantitative research (https://apastyle.apa.org/jars).

Reporting of Qualitative Research

Please follow the reporting recommendations presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th edition) and the Journal Article Reporting standards (JARS) for qualitative research (https://apastyle.apa.org/jars).

Authorship

Conditions for authorship credit include: substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; drafting and/or critically revising the article for important intellectual content; and final approval of the version to be published. All persons designated as authors should meet all three criteria, and all those who qualify should be listed. Authors whose names appear on the submission have contributed sufficiently to the scientific work and therefore share collective responsibility and accountability for the results.

Authorship Order. Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, corresponding author, and order of authors at time of submission. Adding and/or deleting authors at the revision stage may be justifiably warranted. In such case, authors must submit a ‘Change of Authorship’ request letter with their revised manuscript. Changes of authorship or the order of authors will not be considered after acceptance of a manuscript.

Neither symbolic figures such as Camille Noûs nor natural language processing tools driven by artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT qualify as authors, and OUP will screen for them in author lists. The use of AI (for example, to help generate content, write code, or analyze data) must be disclosed both in cover letters to editors and in the Methods or Acknowledgements section of manuscripts.

The corresponding author’s email must be their university/research institute/organization email address.

CRediT

The Journal uses the contributor roles taxonomy (CRediT), which allows authors to describe the contributor roles in a standardized, transparent, and accurate way. Authors should choose from the contributor roles outlined on the CRediT website and supply this information upon submission. You may choose multiple contributor roles per author. Any other individuals who do not meet authorship criteria and made less substantive contributions should be listed in your manuscript as non-author contributors with their contributions clearly described.

Use of copyrighted material

Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Manuscripts are sent out for review on the condition that any unpublished data cited within are properly credited and the appropriate permission has been sought. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

Declaration of original work approved by all authors

Articles cannot be concurrently submitted or published by any other publication, print or electronic. Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Declaration of overlapping reports

In the submission letter, the author must make a complete statement to the editor about any previous reporting of the data (e.g., conference presentations or posting of results in registries) or any related publications or papers submitted for publication that arise from the same data set or study. Full references for each presentation or publication must be provided (with DOI) and, for each publication, a description of how it overlaps with the submitted manuscript must be provided. Any potential redundancies must be referred to and referenced in the submitted manuscript. Copies of such material must be provided upon request.

Policy on multiple manuscripts from the same study

There can be scientifically sound reasons to publish multiple reports from one study. Large, multidisciplinary projects often address multiple research questions and have multiple aims, including examination of mediating and moderating mechanisms. However, there should not be substantial overlap in multiple reports stemming from a single study. Indeed, overlapping piecemeal publication can be misleading and distort the scientific literature, as indicated in the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), often referred to as “Piecemeal Publication”. For more specific information, we refer authors to Chapter 1 of the APA Publication Manual (7th edition). We also require that all published manuscripts and those under review that use the same data set be described with full references (including DOI) in the cover letter, as well as an explanation of the degree of overlap of those papers with the manuscript being submitted to Annals of Behavioral Medicine. Manuscripts that fail to do this will be sent back to the authors.

Preprint policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page. Citations of preprints are allowed in articles, when digital object identifiers (DOI) are available.

Open Science Policy and Transparency Statements (new)

During submission, authors are required to provide a transparency statement about data availability and how to access their data, analytic code, and research materials, which will be published with the journal article.

Transparency Statement

Authors are required to provide five transparency statements with their manuscript submission (1) study registration, (2) analytic plan registration, (3) availability of data, (4) availability of analytic code, and (5) availability of materials. Instructions for writing the transparency statements and examples that authors can use are available in this Transparency Statement document. The statements should be included with the manuscript submission.

Transparency statements will need to be provided for all types of submissions with the exception of Commentaries and Letters to the Editor. Manuscripts will not be reviewed without the transparency statement.

Statements will be published with the journal article. Guidance on pre-registration and data and materials sharing is available below in “Study Registration” and “Availability of Data and Materials” sections.

Study Registration

Clinical trials should be registered in a public registry (e.g., https://clinicaltrials.gov; https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform). The trial registration number should be reported in the Transparency Statements and in the cover letter, not in the body of the manuscript. Clinical trials are defined as studies, including pilot studies, that prospectively assign participants to either intervention or control conditions to study the cause-and-effect relationship between an intervention(s) and a health or behavioral health related outcome. This policy requires the registration of trial methodology but does not require registration of trial results. To facilitate masked peer review, we recommend that authors provide repository links that do not include author information, when possible.

Studies with designs other than clinical trials are also encouraged (but not required) to pre-register the study and its analysis plan, including secondary analyses on pre-registered clinical trials or other existing datasets that may or may not have been pre-registered (see OSF example). Pre-registration involves registering the study design, variables and treatment conditions prior to conducting the research. Pre-registration of analysis plan involves specifying sequences of analyses or the statistical models that will be reported. Analyses presented in manuscripts should be consistent with the pre-registered design and analysis plan. However, in the submitted manuscript, additional analyses beyond those pre-registered are acceptable. Manuscripts should specify when the data analyses presented deviate from the pre-registration plan.

Although the journal does not advocate a particular registry, the registry should be accessible to the public at no charge, open to all prospective registrants, managed by a not-for-profit organization, and electronically searchable. Examples include https://osf.io/ and http://egap.org/content/registration.

Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, Annals of Behavioral Medicine strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper readily available to readers. We suggest that data be deposited in a public repository whenever possible. When submitting in a public repository is not possible (e.g., due to ethical concerns) authors are encouraged to consider depositing in a protected access repository (i.e., one that requires permission to access). For information on general repositories for all data types, and a non-exhaustive list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

Data Citation

Annals of Behavioral Medicine supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

[dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Tobacco Industry Involvement

Society of Behavioral Medicine journals do not accept any research that has been funded by tobacco entities or that includes an author or co-author who is employed by a tobacco entity at time of submission. Research funded by or featuring authors employed by businesses involved in electronic nicotine delivery systems is only prohibited if those businesses are financially connected to the tobacco industry. The submitting author is required to answer a question in Editorial Manager about tobacco industry involvement. Click here for SBM’s full tobacco industry involvement policy. Contact SBM staff at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Manuscript Submission

To submit your manuscript, please go to the journal page on Editorial Manager, an online submission and review system used to track manuscript progress from initial submission through the final publication decision. Complete instructions for the electronic submission process can be found there.

Authors will enter pertinent information into the system and submit the following files:

Manuscript file

This file should contain the entire text of the article, including abstract, text, references, tables, and figures (in that order). In an effort to promote the masked review process used by the journal, where authors and reviewers are anonymous to each other, the manuscript file should not include author information such as names, affiliations, or contact information.

Title page file

The title page includes:

A concise and informative title
The full name and degree of all authors
If available, the 16-digit ORCID of all authors
Institutional affiliation and contact information for all authors
Designation of the corresponding author
Acknowledgments of people. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship may be listed in an acknowledgments section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance, or someone who helped recruit participants.
Acknowledgments of any financial conflicts of interest. See section on Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, below
Acknowledgment of the Involvement of the Funder. See section on Involvement of the Funder, below.
The Clinical Trials Registration # (if applicable). The clinical trials registration number should not be indicated anywhere in the body of the manuscript.
The Open Science Foundation (OSF) or other preregistration # (if applicable). The preregistration number should not be indicated anywhere in the body of the manuscript.
Acknowledgments of grants and funding. The names of funding organizations should be written in full. Example: Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).
Author contributions should be provided consistent with the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) model. This should be done for each author, in authorship order (see above).
4 to 6 keywords that can be used for indexing purposes. It is recommended that you choose medical subject headings (MeSH) and/or psychological index terms for your keywords. The National Library of Medicine provides a searchable MeSH database for PubMed and APA publishes the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms.

COI and Ethical Adherence file

This file contains the required Conflict of Interest (COI) and Adherence to Ethical Standards. COI statements. Download the conflict of interest form to summarize all authors’ conflicts of interest and stating compliance with ethical standards. One signed statement should be submitted for each author. If issues arise concerning the incapacitation or death of an author, please contact the Managing Editor for instructions on how to proceed.

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Although an author may not feel there is any conflict, disclosure of relationships and interests provides a more complete and transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate.

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

Transparency Statement file (new)

Cover Letter file

A separate cover letter should be addressed to:

Dr Angela D. Bryan
Editor-in-Chief
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

The cover letter should include the following elements:

The cover letter should briefly describe how the paper fits within the journal's scope and confirm that it has not been published, is not currently under review elsewhere, and does not contain data that are under review or published elsewhere.
If the report is based on data from a larger study (e.g., an analysis of data from a larger dataset or a secondary analysis of clinical trial data or study data) , the cover letter must provide references to key publications from the larger study, with DOI’s. The cover letter should clarify the relationship between the current paper and the larger study, and briefly explain its novel or value-added scientific contribution relative to previously published papers from the same dataset.
The cover letter should include a summary statement that reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s). For example:
1. (If there is a conflict of interest): Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.
2. (If no conflict exists): Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
The cover letter should provide the clinical trials registration number or pre-registration link (if appropriate).
The cover letter should state that the authors have followed Annals of Behavioral Medicine’s Author Guidelines and that all authors have read and approved the paper.
The cover letter should include the anonymized registration link for any submissions where the authors have used a pre-registration system (e.g., OSF).

Best Practices Reporting Checklists file

Best practices have been developed for reporting a variety of study types, including randomized trials (CONSORT), observational studies (STROBE), non-randomized controlled trials (TREND), systematic reviews (PRISMA), meta-analyses (QUORUM), and qualitative research (SRQR or COREQ-32). Submissions to this journal should comply with the relevant reporting guidelines published by the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) Network.

Authors are expected to adhere to appropriate research reporting standards and should include the appropriate completed checklist with their submission. Authors should include a statement in the methods describing which reporting guidelines were followed (e.g., “Study method and results are reported following the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement for cross-sectional studies (von Elm et al., 2007)"). If there is a strong reason for not providing a best practices checklist from EQUATOR please address this in the cover letter. However, the Editor may still request a checklist before the manuscript is considered for review.

Additional Files You May Submit

Electronic Supplementary Material file(s)

If electronic supplementary materials (ESM) are submitted, they will be published as received from the author in the online version only. ESM should be kept to a minimum and only include material that helps the reader understand the manuscript. It is not a repository for data, code, study brochures or flyers. ESM may consist of information that cannot be included in the printed version of the manuscript (e.g., animations, video clips, sound recordings, information that is more convenient in electronic form, sequences, spectral data, or additional tables or illustrations).

If supplying ESM, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., “…as shown in Electronic Supplementary Material 1.”)

Graphical Abstracts

Authors are encouraged to submit a graphical (or visual), abstract as part of the article, in addition to the text abstract. The graphical abstract should clearly summarize the focus and findings of the article, and will be published as part of the article online and in PDF. The graphical abstract should be submitted for peer review as a separate file, selecting the appropriate file-type designation in the journal’s online submission system. The file should be clearly named, e.g., graphical abstract.tiff. See guidance on appropriate file format and resolution for graphics. Please ensure graphical abstracts are in landscape format.

Some examples of graphical abstracts.

Style Guidelines

Manuscripts should be submitted in Word (Word 2007 or higher).

The Annals of Behavioral Medicine follows the style guidelines of the American Medical Association (11th edition). By following the mini style checklist you can review any style points not covered in the Instruction to Authors guide.

All pages should be numbered (including pages containing the title, author name and affiliation, abstract, acknowledgments, references, tables, and figure caption list), and double-spaced with a minimum one-inch margin on all sides. Use a normal, plain 12-point font (e.g., Arial or Times Roman) for the text. Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar.

Annals does not support the use of footnotes.

References

In-Text Citations

Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:

Behavioral medicine research spans many disciplines [3].
This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].

Reference List

The reference list follows the body of the article and uses AMA style (see examples below). The reference list should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text. Entries in the reference list should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they appear in the manuscript. Examples of AMA reference style format for the reference list are provided below.

Journal article with one to six authors:

Sal Wachter AR, Freischlag JA, Sawyer RG, Sanfey HA. The training needs and priorities of male and female surgeons and their trainees. J Am Coll Surg. 2005; 201: 199-205.

Journal article with seven or more authors:

Fukushima H, Cureoglu S, Schachern PO, et al. Cochlear changes in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Otolaryng. 2005; 133: 100-106.

Chapter in edited book:

O’Brien C. Drug addiction and drug abuse. In: Brunton LB, Lazo JS, Parker KL, eds. Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2005: 607-629.

Book with one to six authors:

Lugalla JB. Poverty, AIDS, and Street Children in East Africa. Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press; 2003.

Book with seven or more authors:

Greg AM, Marshall KC, Peters NH, et al. Raising Large Families. San Francisco, CA: Brady Limited; 2006.

Edited book with one to six editors:

Brunton LB, Lazo JS, Parker KL, eds. Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2005.

Edited book with seven or more editors:

Brunton LB, Lazo JS, Parker KL, et al. eds. Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 11th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill; 2005.

Website:

National Cancer Institute. Underlying mortality data provided by national Center for Health Statistics. Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/. Accessibility verified September 20, 2005.

Other Guidelines

Additional guidelines for formatting your manuscript.

Manuscripts should be written and checked for spelling and grammar using standard U.S. English. Oxford University Press partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Authors submitting to OUP journals are entitled to a discount of 30% for editing services at Enago, via the Specialist English Editing Services for Oxford University Press Authors page. Enago is an independent service provider, who will handle all aspects of this service, including author payment.

Non-sexist, non-racist, and non-heterosexist language should be used throughout the manuscript. Chapter 5 of the APA Publication Manual (7th edition) provides excellent guidelines for bias-free language and we urge authors to follow them. This includes being sensitive to labels and terms for different groups (e.g., age groups, illness groups, gender, race, and ethnicity).

Sections of the manuscript should not be numbered, but use the headings described in the APA Style Manual (7th edition).

Use no more than three levels of displayed headings.

To enhance readability for a wide audience, the use of abbreviations and acronyms should be avoided throughout the manuscript whenever possible. Exceptions include common statistical terminology (e.g., ANOVA) and other widely recognized acronyms. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter. Do not use computer analyses variable names instead of the actual name of the variable.

Sections of the Manuscript

Title. A good title increases the discoverability of your articles. A good title is short, clearly states the key finding, and uses primary keywords. See SBM's SEO guidelines for authors [PDF] for examples and more information on how to ensure your title is optimized for search engines.

Do not name the statistical analysis used in the article in the title unless it is essential to understanding your research question or findings.

See OUP's Author Resource Centre

Abstract. Provide a structured abstract of 150 to 250 words, which should be divided into the following sections (with labels):

Background (including the main study objective and research question)
Purpose
Methods
Results
Conclusions

Include and repeat the keywords that individuals are likely to enter into a search engine when looking for information on your article topic. This will increase your article’s discoverability. See SBM's SEO guidelines for authors [PDF] for examples and more information on how to ensure your abstract is optimized for search engines.

Commentaries, for which a structured abstract would be inappropriate, should include an unstructured abstract containing a maximum of 250 words.

For most submissions, the body of the manuscript should include the following sections. The absence of any of these sections may delay the peer review process.

Introduction. A strong introduction will establish the current knowledge of the field as it applies to the manuscript; briefly summarize previous empirical and conceptual literature to provide the appropriate background and to establish the importance of the current study; indicate the relevant gaps in knowledge leading to the current research question; and to introduce the purpose and hypotheses of the current study. Although Annals of Behavioral Medicine does not designate the length of the Introduction, most Introductory sections span 3-5 pages for full length submissions. Please be sure the full title of the manuscript appears at the beginning of the Introduction section.

If the work replicates or extends previous studies, the rationale and discussion should disclose the study's purpose (i.e., to confirm, disconfirm, or extend previous research) and not overstate minor innovations or superficially novel features.

Method. This section includes a clear description of the use of appropriate methods of participant sampling, study design, measures, and statistical analysis. Measures should be appropriately referenced, including notation of their reliability and validity, and any adaptations to their customary use should be noted.

Results. The Results section should include a summary of the collected data and analyses, which follows from the analytic plan. All results should be described, including unexpected findings. Authors should include both descriptive statistics and tests of significance, including null hypothesis testing, effect sizes, confidence intervals, inferential statistics, and supplementary analyses.

Discussion. The discussion section offers evaluation and interpretation of the findings, and describes limitations to the generalizability of the findings. This section might include a statement of support or nonsupport for the original hypotheses or research questions in light of the findings. In interpreting the results, authors consider study limitation including sources of bias and other threats to internal and external validity, imprecision of measures, overall number of tests or overlap among tests, effect sizes, etc. Clinical implications of findings and recommendations for further study may also be included. Reports should highlight the significance or novel contribution of original research, without overstating its translational, clinical, or public health implications. Where appropriate, incorporate how the pandemic or other influential factors may have affected the findings.

Tables and Figures. Tables and figures should follow APA Style guidelines (7th edition). Use the table function in WORD, not EXCEL spreadsheets, to create tables. Tables are to be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and referred to by number in the text. Each table should be typed on a separate page. Each table must include a title that clearly and concisely explains the components of the table. Table notes should be indicated by superscript lowercase letters (or asterisks for significant values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.

Figures and illustrations are to be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals and referred to by number in the text. Figure captions are to appear on a separate page and must identify all elements found in the figure. All figures must be submitted as image files (.png, .jpeg, .pdf) at time of submission.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work. 

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs.

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article.

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text.

Best Practices Reporting Checklists (new)

Best practices have been developed for reporting a variety of study types, including randomized trials (CONSORT), non-randomized controlled trials (TREND), observational studies (STROBE), systematic reviews (PRISMA), meta-analyses (QUORUM), and qualitative research (SRQR or COREQ32). These reporting guidelines, checklists, and flow diagrams for many types of studies are available from the Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research (EQUATOR) network.

Authors are expected to adhere to appropriate research reporting standards and should include the appropriate completed checklist with their submission. Authors should include a statement in the methods describing which reporting guidelines were followed (e.g., “Study method and results are reported following the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement for cross-sectional studies (von Elm et al., 2007)"). If there is a strong reason for not providing a best practices checklist from EQUATOR, please address this in the cover letter. However, the Editor may still request a checklist before the manuscript is considered for review.

English Language Editing

For editors and reviewers to accurately access the work presented in your manuscript you need to ensure the English language is of sufficient quality to be understood. If you need help writing in English you should consider:

Asking a colleague who is a native English speaker to review the manuscript for clarity.
Visiting an English language tutorial which covers the common mistakes when writing in English.
Using a professional language editing service where Editors will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review.
Using Google Translate or some other software program does not provide clear communication of ideas and is discouraged.

Oxford University Press partners with Enago, a leading provider of author services. Authors submitting to OUP journals are entitled to a discount of 30% for editing services at Enago, via the Specialist English Editing Services for Oxford University Press Authors page. Enago is an independent service provider, who will handle all aspects of this service, including author payment.

Appeals Process for Manuscript Submissions

If a manuscript is rejected and the author(s) believe that a pertinent point was overlooked or misunderstood by the reviewers, it is possible to appeal the editorial decision by contacting the Associate Editor in charge of the submission. If an appeal to the Associate Editor does not bring about a satisfactory resolution, further appeal can be directed to the Editor-in-Chief. If an appeal to the Editor-in-Chief does not result in a satisfactory resolution, then a final appeal can be addressed to the Chair of the Publications and Communications Council of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct. Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavor. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation can be achieved by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include:

The manuscript has not been submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
The manuscript has not been published previously (partly or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work (please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (“self-plagiarism”).
A single study is not split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (e.g., piecemeal or “salami-publishing”).
No data have been fabricated or manipulated (including images) to support your conclusions.
No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (“plagiarism”). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions are secured for material that is copyrighted. Annals of Behavioral Medicine uses software to screen for plagiarism and self-plagiarism.
Consent to submit has been received explicitly from all co-authors, as well as from the responsible authorities - tacitly or explicitly - at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted. It is not the Editor-in-Chief’s role to adjudicate authorship disputes.

If there is a suspicion of misconduct, the journal will carry out an investigation following the COPE guidelines. The COPE guidelines allow editors to speak with each other about possible double submissions. If, after investigation, the allegation seems to raise valid concerns, the accused author will be contacted and given an opportunity to address the issue. If misconduct has been established beyond reasonable doubt, this may result in the Editor-in-Chief's implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:

If the article is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction, either an erratum will be placed with the article or in severe cases complete retraction of the article will occur. The reason must be given in the published erratum or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the paper is maintained on the platform, watermarked "retracted" and an explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
The author's institution may be informed.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research and to ensure that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” when submitting a paper:

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
Informed consent

Please note that standards could vary slightly per journal dependent on their peer review policies (i.e., single or double mask peer review) as well as per journal subject discipline. Before submitting your article, check the instructions following this section carefully.
The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could influence or bias the work. Although an author may not feel there are conflicts, disclosure of relationships and interests affords a more transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of real or perceived conflicts of interests is a perspective to which the readers are entitled and is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation for consultancy work is inappropriate.

Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
Honoraria for speaking at symposia
Financial support for attending symposia
Financial support for educational programs
Employment or consultation
Support from a project sponsor
Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
Multiple affiliations
Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
Intellectual property rights (e.g., patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work

Although many universities and other institutions and organizations have established policies and thresholds for reporting financial interests and other conflicts of interest, Annals of Behavioral Medicine requires complete disclosure of all relevant financial relationships and potential conflicts of interest, regardless of amount or value. If authors are uncertain about what constitutes a relevant conflict of interest or relationship, they should contact the editorial office.

The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. In author collaborations where formal agreements for representation allow it, it is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors.

The corresponding author will include a summary statement on the title page that is separate from their manuscript that reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form. Examples are presented here:

If there are financial conflicts of interest:

Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X).

Conflict of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.

If no conflict exists, the authors should state:

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Involvement of the Funder

The corresponding author should indicate on the Title Page (not in the body of the manuscript), any sources of financial support for the research. The author should also specify the role of the funding source(s), if any, in (1) conceptualization of the research; (2) study design and conduct; (3) collection, management, analysis and interpretation of data; (4) writing and review of the manuscript; and (5) the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement, this also should be stated on the Title page., e.g.,

Role of the Funder: The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Statement of human rights

When reporting studies that involve human participants, their data or biological specimens, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved (or granted exemption) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

The following statements should be included on the cover page:

Ethical approval: “All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”

Statement on the welfare of animals

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

For studies with animals, the following statement should be included on the cover page:

Ethical approval: “All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.”

If applicable (where such a committee exists): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted.”

If articles do not contain studies with human participants or animals by any of the authors, please select one of the following statements:

“This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.”
“This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.”

Informed consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, for example, the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during a study or an interview, as well as to any photograph that was taken. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent prior to inclusion in the study, except in any instances where an Institutional Review Board determined it appropriate to waive written consent. (This should be stated in these instances). Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

The following statement should be included:

Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

If identifying information about participants is available in the article, the following statement should be included:

Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article.

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data, plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation, and misappropriation of the work are all unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines.

Every article is received with the understanding that it is submitted solely to ABM, and that no substantial portion of it has been submitted elsewhere. A manuscript based primarily on data published previously is not acceptable. ABM routinely performs plagiarism checks on submitted manuscripts. If an article is based on an abstract presented orally or in poster form at a meeting, include a statement to that effect, giving the name and place of the meeting and the day(s) of presentation.

More information on Publication Ethics.

Instructions for Manuscripts Accepted for Publication

Proofreading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, and figures. Substantial changes in content (e.g., new results, corrected values, title or authorship modifications) are not allowed without the approval of the Editor. After online publication, critical changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which must receive the Editor’s and the Publisher’s approval, and which will be hyperlinked to the article.

Advance Access

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Copyright

Authors will receive an electronic notification to transfer copyright of the article to the Society of Behavioral Medicine via Oxford University Press. This will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

Open Access

ABM offers the option of publishing under either a standard license or an open access license. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access license in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access license. See details of the open access licences and open access charges.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Please note that you may be eligible for a discount to the open access charge based on society membership. Authors may be asked to prove eligibility for the member discount.

Visit the OUP licensing website to find out more about Creative Commons licenses.

Third-Party Copyright and Open Access

In order to reproduce any third-party material, including tables, figures, or images, in an article, authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse. When seeking to reproduce any kind of third-party material authors should request the following:

non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and journal;
print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
world-wide English-language rights.

It is particularly important to clear permission for use in both the print and online versions of the journal, and we are not able to accept permissions which carry a time limit because we retain journal articles as part of our online journal archive. Further guidelines on clearing permissions can be downloaded as a pdf.

If you will be publishing your paper under an open access license but it contains material for which you do not have open access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:
Title of content, Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]

Self-Archiving Policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving Policy page.

Reuse of Oxford University Press Material

For more information regarding the reuse of Oxford University Press material, please visit the Rights & Permissions webpage.