Authors


Time to first decision with review:
44 days (median)
Acceptance to publication:
34 days (median)
Acceptance rate:
24%
Impact Factor:
0.8
World Journal of Pediatric Surgery (WJPS) strives to become one of the most credible, authoritative resources publishing significant findings and cutting-edge results in pediatric surgery. WJPS publishes high-quality original research, reviews, and perspectives related to all aspects of pediatric surgery.
The journal is particularly interested in interdisciplinary studies including, but not limited to, minimally invasive techniques, robotic surgery, molecular imaging, precision surgery, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, new materials and medical instruments.

Editorial policy

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery adheres to the highest standards concerning its editorial policies on publication ethics, scientific misconduct, consent and peer review criteria. The journal follows guidance produced by bodies that include the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).To view all BMJ Journal policies please refer to the BMJ Author Hub policies page, including information about our Editors’ roles and responsibilities. Research ethics and consent Authors are required to submit a statement that their study obtained ethics approval (or a statement that it was not required and why) and that participants gave informed consent. Our Editors will consider whether the work is morally acceptable as determined by the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki. In addition to this an article that contains personal medical information about an identifiable living individual requires patients explicit consent (in the format of a signed BMJ patient consent form) before we will publish it. Please find further details on BMJ research ethics policies (human participants and animals) and consent for publication; including a link to the downloadable consent form. Competing interests To make the best decision on how to deal with a manuscript, World Journal of Pediatric Surgery needs to know about any competing interests authors may have; this includes any commercial, financial or non financial associations that may be relevant to the submitted article. Authors must download and complete a copy of the ICMJE Conflict of Interest disclosure form. In addition to this World Journal of Pediatric Surgery ensures that all advertising and sponsorship associated with the journal does not influence editorial decisions, is immediately distinguishable from editorial content and meets all other BMJ guidelines. Please find more information about competing interests and a link to the form.
Publication misconduct We take seriously all possible misconduct. If an Editor, author or reader has concerns that a submitted article describes something that might be considered to constitute misconduct in research, publication or professional behaviour they should forward their concerns to the journal. The publisher will deal with allegations appropriately following ICMJE and COPE guidelines. Corrections and retractions are considered where an article has already been published; corrections, expressions of concern or a retraction notices will be published as soon as possible in line with the BMJ correction and retraction policy. Large language models Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy the authorship criteria of World Journal of Pediatric Surgery. The use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and acknowledgements, if appropriate) of the manuscript. If a Methods section is not available, the Introduction section (or another appropriate section) can be used to document the use of the LLM.

Copyright and authors’ rights

As an open access journal, World Journal of Pediatric Surgery adheres to the Budapest Open Access Initiative definition of open access. Articles are published under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-NC or CC-BY) to facilitate reuse of the content and authors retain copyright; please refer to the World Journal of Pediatric Surgery Copyright Author Licence Statement. When publishing in World Journal of Pediatric Surgery, authors choose between two licence types – CC-BY-NC and CC-BY. As an author, you may wish to post your article in an institutional or subject repository, or on a scientific social sharing network. You may also link your published article to your preprint (if applicable). What you can do with your article, without seeking permission, depends on the licence you have chosen and the version of your article. Please refer to the BMJ author self archiving and permissions policies page for more information.

Preprints

Preprints foster openness, accessibility and collaboration by allowing authors to make their findings immediately available to the research community and receive feedback on an article before it is submitted to a journal for formal publication. BMJ fully supports and encourages the archiving of preprints in any recognised, not-for-profit server such as medRxiv. BMJ does not consider the posting of an article in a dedicated preprint repository to be prior publication.
Preprints are reports of work that have not been peer-reviewed; Preprints should therefore not be used to guide clinical practice, health-related behaviour or health policy. For more information, please refer to our Preprint policy page.

Peer Review

Articles submitted to World Journal of Pediatric Surgery are subject to peer review. The journal operates single-anonymised peer review whereby the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author; usually, two external reviewer reports are obtained before an Original research or Review article is accepted for publication. Peer review is managed by the editorial team rather than BMJ or Zhejiang University Children’s Hospital or Zhejiang University Press to ensure absolute editorial freedom of the journal. When a paper has been submitted from the Editor, Deputy or Associate Editors’ departments, they have no role in the reviewing or decision-making process. This also applies to any Associate Editors who are authors, in which instance the reviewing process is handled by the Editor in Chief. For more information on what to expect during the peer review process please refer to BMJ Author Hub – the peer review process. BMJ requests that all reviewers adhere to a set of basic principles and standards during the peer-review process in research publication; these are based on the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers. Please refer to our peer review terms and conditions policy page.
BMJ is committed to transparency. Every article we publish includes a description of its provenance (commissioned or not commissioned) and whether it was internally or externally peer-reviewed. Plagiarism is the appropriation of the language, ideas or thoughts of another without crediting their true source and representation of them as one’s own original work. BMJ is a member of CrossCheck by CrossRef and iThenticate. iThenticate is a plagiarism screening service that verifies the originality of content submitted before publication. BMJ runs manuscripts through iThenticate during the peer review process. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting ithenticate.com.

Article transfer service

BMJ is committed to ensuring that all good quality research is published. Our article transfer service helps authors find the best journal for their research while providing an easy and smooth publication process. If authors agree to transfer their manuscript, all versions, supplementary files and peer reviewer comments are automatically transferred; there is no need to resubmit or reformat.
Authors who submit to the World Journal of Pediatric Surgery and are rejected will be offered the option of transferring to another BMJ Journal, such as BMJ Open. Please note that the article transfer service does not guarantee acceptance but you should receive a quicker initial decision on your manuscript. Contact the Transfer Editor at transfers@bmj.com

Article processing charges

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery is an open access journal that does not levy an Article Processing Charge (APC). There are no submission, colour or page charges.

ORCID

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery mandates ORCID iDs for the submitting author at the time of article submission; co-authors and reviewers are strongly encouraged to also connect their ScholarOne accounts to ORCID. We strongly believe that the increased use and integration of ORCID iDs will be beneficial for the whole research community.
Please find more information about ORCID and BMJ’s policy on our Author Hub.

Data Sharing

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery adheres to BMJ’s Tier 3 data policy. We strongly encourage that data generated by your research that supports your article be made available as soon as possible, wherever legally and ethically possible. All research articles must contain a Data Availability Statement. For more information and FAQs, please see BMJ’s full Data Sharing Policy page.

Rapid responses

A rapid response is a moderated but not peer reviewed online response to a published article in World Journal of Pediatric Surgery; it will not receive a DOI and will not be indexed. Find out more about responses and how to submit a response.

Submission guidelines

Please review the below article type specifications including the required article lengths, illustrations, table limits and reference counts. The word count excludes the title page, abstract, tables, acknowledgements, contributions and references. Manuscripts should be as succinct as possible. For further support when making your submission please refer to the resources available on the BMJ Author Hub. Here you will find information on writing and formatting your research through to the peer review process. We encourage authors to ensure that research articles are written in accordance with the relevant research reporting guideline.
You may also wish to use the language editing and translation services provided by BMJ Author Services. Please note that World Journal of Pediatric Surgery no longer accepts Case Reports or Case Studies Original research Systematic review Editorial Review Letter Commentary Perspective Clinical image Figures Video Abstracts

Original Research

Original Research includes results of studies relevant to basic and clinical research in pediatric surgery including randomized trials, intervention studies, studies of screening and diagnostic tests, cohort studies, cost-effectiveness analyses and case control studies. Submissions reporting an observational cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional study must include the relevant completed STROBE guidelines. When reporting randomized controlled trials (RCT), authors must attempt to conform with the CONSORT guidelines and checklist. Research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc) should be submitted as Systematic reviews. For more information on reporting guidelines, please visit the author hub. Each manuscript should follow the basic structure of abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, references, and tables and figures as appropriate. Supplementary and raw data can be placed online separately from the text, and we may request that you separate out some material into supplementary data files to make the main manuscript clearer for readers.
Word count: up to 3500 words Abstract: up to 300 words Tables/Illustrations: maximum 8 tables and/or 3 figures References: up to 40 Please include the key messages of your article after your abstract using the following headings. This section should be no more than 3-5 sentences and should be distinct from the abstract; be succinct, specific and accurate.
  • What is already known on this topicsummarise the state of scientific knowledge on this subject before you did your study and why this study needed to be done
  • What this study addssummarise what we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before
  • How this study might affect research, practice or policysummarise the implications of this study
This will be published as a summary box after the abstract in the final published article. General guidelines on manuscript preparation Pre-submission checklist

Systematic review

This article type includes all research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc). Please include the research type in your title to make the nature of your study clear. When reporting a systematic review and meta-analysis, authors must attempt to conform with the PRISMA statement, and a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram can be submitted as supplemental files for checking. Please see Original research for more guidance on article requirements.

Editorial

World Journal of Pediatric Surgery welcomes editorials. The purpose of an editorial is to provide a novel perspective on a clinically-relevant issue. We welcome suggestions for possible topics and authors.
Word count: 1500 words Tables/Illustrations: 1 table or figure References: should not normally exceed 25

Review

The journal welcomes narrative review articles to inform healthcare decisions in pediatric surgery. Research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc) are classified by the journal as Original research and must be submitted as such.
Word count: up to 5000 words Abstract: up to 300 words Tables/Illustrations: maximum 6 tables and/or figures

Letter

Short accounts of original research will be considered for publication as Letters. These include concise, focused reports or descriptive studies that describe preliminary, but meaningful, findings. No abstract should be included. Letters will be peer reviewed in the same manner as Original Research articles.
Word count: up to 800 words References: should not normally exceed 10

Commentary

A commentary should comment on another research article published WJPS or another journal which focuses on the latest novel finding in pediatric surgery. A commentary piece can focus on an article of significant importance, controversial or in a rapidly developing area. Most commentaries are commissioned, but unsolicited commentaries are welcomed. Commentaries are peer-reviewed.
Word count: up to 800 words Tables/Illustrations: 1 table or figure References: should not normally exceed 10

Perspective

Perspective pieces should communicate a personal view or idea on a certain topic of interest, or on a current issue or advancement in pediatric surgery (not a single article). This should be based on the interpretation of available data and should include a focused summary of the latest research. Opinions should be supported by evidence and acknowledge alternative arguments; current advances and future directions can be considered in the piece. A short piece of current or past personal research on the topic is not appropriate. Perspectives may be invited by the Editors but unsolicited submissions are also welcomed. Perspectives are peer-reviewed.
Word count: up to 2500 words Tables/Illustrations: 4 tables or figures References: up to 30

Clinical Image

Images that highlight novel findings (diagnostic or therapeutic) in pediatric surgery will be featured in this section. Normally only clinical photographs are accepted, but accompanying skiagrams or pathological images also may be considered for publication. Photographs should be of high quality, clearly identify the condition and preferably add to the existing knowledge.
You are required to provide proof of consent for publication from each patient described in the article, or from their guardian, regardless of whether the patient can be identified from the images or not, preferably using the BMJ consent form. Word count: up to 800 words References: should not normally exceed 10

Figures

Images must be uploaded as separate files. All images must be cited within the main text in numerical order and legends must be provided (ideally at the end of the manuscript). Figures should be submitted in TIFF, EPS, JPEG or PDF formats. In EPS files, text (if present) should be outlined. For non-vector files (eg TIFF, JPEG) a minimum resolution of 300 dpi is required, except for line art which should be 1200 dpi. Histograms should be presented in a simple, two-dimensional format, with no background grid. For figures consisting of multiple images/parts, please ensure these are submitted as a single composite file for processing. We are unable to accept figures that are submitted as multiple files.
During submission, ensure that the figure files are labelled with the correct File Designation of “Mono Image” for black and white figures and “Colour Image” for colour figures. Figures are checked using automated quality control and if they are below the minimum standard you will be alerted and asked to resupply them. Please ensure that any specific patient/hospital details are removed or blacked out (e.g. X-rays, MRI scans, etc). Figures that use a black bar to obscure a patient’s identity are not accepted. For more information on formatting figures and illustrations, please see our Author Hub for detailed guidance on figure preparation.

Video Abstracts

We welcome video abstracts to accompany accepted research articles. These allow authors to personally talk through their work beyond the restrictions of a formal article to improve the user’s understanding. Note that we will not ask you to consider submitting a video abstract until your paper has been accepted. Please do not try to upload a video abstract upon initial submission of your manuscript. There are many tutorials online which can guide the production of a video abstract, using widely and often freely available software. Windows Movie Maker and Apple iMovie are the most common examples. Examples of video abstracts are available from The BMJ. Below are a few guidelines for making a video abstract. Authors may also want to ask their institution’s press/media office for assistance.
  • Video abstracts should not last longer than 4 minutes.
  • The content and focus of the video must relate directly to the study that has been accepted for publication, and should not stray beyond the data. We recommend that you follow the same structure as the paper itself i.e. briefly outline the background/context of the study, present your research objective, outline the methods used, present the key results and then discuss the implications of the outcomes.
  • The presentation and content of the video should be in a style and in terms that will be understandable and accessible to a general medical audience. The main language should be English, but we welcome subtitles in another language. Please avoid jargon that will not be familiar to a wide medical audience, and do not use abbreviations.
  • Authors usually talk directly into the camera and/or present a slideshow, but we encourage the use of other relevant visual and audio material (such as animations, video clips, still photographs, figures, infographics). If you wish to use material from previously published work or from other sources, please obtain the appropriate permissions from the relevant publisher or copyright owner.
  • If the video shows any identifiable living patients and/or identifiable personal details, authors need to demonstrate that consent has been obtained. If a patient consent form was provided for the related article, there is no need to provide this again for the video.
  • Please use the compression parameters that video sharing sites use. Often these are standard options from your editing software. A comprehensive guide is available from the vimeo website.
Videos are too large to email so will need to be uploaded to BMJ’s account on the Hightail website. Please include the journal’s name and your manuscript ID number in the message field – this will enable us to match your video to your paper. Your video needs to be received by the time that you return the corrections for your article proof, at the very latest. Please note that if you do not correctly label your video or if you miss the deadline, this may cause delays in publication of both your article and the video. All video abstracts will be assessed for suitability by the editorial team and publication is not guaranteed. In some cases editors may request edits to the video. Video abstracts are embedded within the research article online and also published separately on the journal’s YouTube channel. They are published under the same copyright terms as the associated article.