Manuscripts submitted under these instructions should be written in clear, concise, publication-standard English. If any Greek-language information is required for indexing, archiving, local publication, or administrative purposes, the Editorial Office will inform the corresponding author during the submission process.

1. Journal Profile and Scope

The Hellenic Journal of Nursing Science (HJNS) is the journal of the Hellenic Regulatory Body of Nurses (ENE). It is an interdisciplinary journal that aims to promote nursing and health sciences in Greece and internationally. The Journal is published quarterly and addresses nurses, nursing researchers, educators, students, and other healthcare professionals across the broad field of nursing and health care.

In addition to its printed edition, the Journal is freely available online at http://journal-ene.gr/. HJNS accepts manuscripts that contain original material that has not been published previously, except in abstract form, and is not under consideration for publication in another scientific journal.

The Journal welcomes scholarly work relevant to nursing practice, nursing education, nursing management, public health, health policy, clinical care, interdisciplinary health sciences, and related methodological, ethical, social, and professional issues.

2. Types of Manuscripts

3. General Submission Conditions

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work has not been published previously, is not under consideration elsewhere, and has been approved by all co-authors and by the responsible authorities at the institution where the work was carried out.

When submitting a manuscript, all authors must sign the standard submission form confirming that they agree with the content, approve the work submitted for publication, and transfer copyright to the Journal upon acceptance.

Authors must also declare that: (a) any financial support has been fully disclosed, or that no financial support was received; (b) there are no conflicts of interest, or that any conflicts have been clearly declared; (c) the research protocol was approved by the appropriate Bioethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, where applicable; and (d) all participants provided informed consent before inclusion in the study, after receiving appropriate information about the research procedure.

4. Editorial Assessment and Peer Review

The acceptance criteria for manuscripts include the quality and originality of the work, methodological soundness, ethical compliance, clarity of presentation, and significance and usefulness of the data to the Journal’s readers.

All manuscripts undergo an initial assessment by the Editor-in-Chief, Editorial Director, or members of the Editorial Board to determine their suitability for the Journal and their compliance with these instructions. Manuscripts that do not fall within the Journal’s scope, do not comply with the instructions, or do not meet minimum standards of quality or ethical reporting may be returned to authors before peer review.

If a manuscript is considered suitable for further evaluation, it is reviewed by two independent reviewers with expertise in the relevant field. The review process is anonymous: reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and reviewers’ identities remain anonymous to the authors.

The reviewers’ comments, together with their recommendations and requested corrections, are sent to the authors. Authors are informed in writing of the final decision of the Editorial Board once the evaluation process has been completed.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to make language, style, and editorial corrections to manuscripts in order to reduce ambiguity and repetition and to improve communication between authors and readers.

The Instructions for Authors are available on the Journal’s website: http://journal-ene.gr/.

5. Language Policy: English-language Edition

Manuscripts submitted to this edition must be written in English. Authors should use clear academic English and should avoid unnecessary jargon, ambiguous phrasing, excessive abbreviations, and colloquial expressions.

Authors who are not native speakers of English are encouraged to have the manuscript reviewed by a professional language editor or a qualified English-speaking colleague before submission. Language editing does not guarantee acceptance; the scientific content and methodological quality of the manuscript remain the responsibility of the authors.

The Journal may request further language revision before acceptance or publication if the manuscript is not sufficiently clear for peer review or readership.

6. Abstract and Keywords

All manuscripts should be accompanied by an English abstract of approximately 400 words, structured as follows: Introduction, Aim, Method and Material, Results, and Conclusions. Case studies and Letters to the Editor should be accompanied by an English summary of approximately 200 words.

Four to six keywords should be listed at the end of the abstract. Authors are encouraged to use recognized health-science terminology, such as MeSH terms, where appropriate.

The abstract should accurately reflect the content of the manuscript and should not include information that does not appear in the main text. Abbreviations should be avoided in the abstract unless they are essential and widely recognized.

7. Manuscript Preparation

Manuscripts should be typed in Times New Roman, 12-point font, with 1.5 line spacing. Page margins should be 2.54 cm on all sides. Page numbers should appear in the lower right corner of each page.

To maintain anonymity during peer review, the main manuscript file must not contain author names, institutional affiliations, acknowledgements, funding details that identify the authors, ethics approval numbers that reveal the institution, or other identifying information. Institutions should be described in general terms, for example: “The study sample consisted of patients hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit of a Greek general regional hospital.”

Units of measurement for length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units, using internationally recognized symbols. Drug names should preferably be reported using generic names. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently throughout the manuscript. Excessive use of abbreviations should be avoided.

Headings and subheadings should be used consistently. Authors should avoid unexplained acronyms, unsupported claims, duplication between tables and text, and conclusions that go beyond the results.

8. Recommended Structure of the Main Text

The main text should normally be divided into the following sections, where applicable: Introduction, Aim, Material and Method, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions. The structure may be adapted for narrative reviews, editorials, case studies, and letters, provided that the manuscript remains clear and logically organized.

Introduction: Present the background, context, and rationale of the study or article. The introduction should identify the knowledge gap or practical problem addressed by the manuscript.

Aim: State the aim, objective, research question, or hypothesis clearly and concisely.

Material and Method: Describe the study design, setting, participants or data sources, sampling strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, instruments, procedures, variables, outcomes, statistical or qualitative analysis, and ethical approval. The description should be sufficiently detailed to allow readers to understand and evaluate the work.

Results: Present the findings clearly and objectively. Results presented in tables or figures should not be repeated in detail in the text; the text should highlight the most important findings.

Discussion: Interpret the findings in relation to previous literature, theoretical or clinical relevance, strengths and limitations, and implications for nursing practice, education, management, policy, or future research.

Conclusions: Provide concise conclusions that are supported by the findings. Avoid introducing new results or unsupported recommendations.

9. Reporting Guidelines

Authors should use the appropriate reporting guideline for their study design, where applicable. Reporting checklists and flow diagrams should be submitted as supplementary files when relevant.

• CONSORT for randomized controlled trials and its extensions where applicable.
• STROBE for observational studies, including cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies.
• PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses, including a flow diagram and checklist.
• CARE for case reports and case series where applicable.
• COREQ or SRQR for qualitative research, where appropriate.
• SQUIRE for quality improvement studies, where appropriate.
• EQUATOR Network resources for other study designs and specialized reporting requirements.

Use of a reporting guideline does not replace scientific judgement; it helps ensure that essential information is reported transparently and completely.

10. Research Ethics and Participant Protection

Manuscripts submitted for publication must include a cover letter stating that all studies involving human participants have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee and conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki and its subsequent revisions. It must also be clearly stated in the manuscript that all participants gave informed consent before inclusion in the study.

Details that could disclose the identity of participants, patients, institutions, or staff must be omitted or anonymized. Images, clinical details, quotations, or case descriptions that could identify an individual should be used only with appropriate consent.

For studies involving vulnerable populations, sensitive personal data, patients, students, employees, or dependent relationships, authors should explain how voluntariness, confidentiality, and participant protection were ensured.

For retrospective studies, audits, service evaluations, or studies using existing data, authors should clarify whether ethics approval and/or informed consent were required or waived by the competent authority.

The Editorial Board reserves the right to request documentation of ethics approval, informed consent, or permission to use data or materials.

11. Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Authors should avoid plagiarism, self-plagiarism, redundant publication, duplicate submission, data fabrication or falsification, inappropriate image manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, gift or ghost authorship, citation manipulation, and any other practice that could compromise the integrity of the scholarly record.

If a manuscript, or part of it, is under review elsewhere or has previously been published in conference proceedings, institutional repositories, preprint servers, theses, or other public sources, this must be declared when submitting the manuscript to the Journal.

Authors who wish to include figures, tables, instruments, questionnaires, scales, or text passages that have been published elsewhere must obtain written permission from the copyright holder(s) and submit evidence that such permission has been granted. Any material submitted without such evidence will be considered to have originated from the authors.

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with these requirements. Authors are responsible for any false statements or failure to meet the above requirements.

12. Authorship and Author Contributions

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; the drafting or critical revision of the manuscript; and the approval of the final version submitted for publication. All authors should agree to be accountable for the work.

Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged with their permission. Participation only in seeking funding or only in collecting data does not justify authorship and should instead be recognized in the acknowledgements, where appropriate.

Author contributions should be presented after the main text and before the reference list. The contribution of each author should be described separately and clearly.

Example: IK analyzed the data and contributed to the interpretation of the results and the writing of the manuscript. TM participated in the conception and design of the study and in data collection. PG and DD participated in the study design and data collection. All authors critically reviewed and approved the final manuscript submitted for publication.

13. Conflict of Interest, Funding, and Data Availability

Conflict of interest: Authors must indicate whether they have any financial or non-financial relationship with entities that may have a commercial, academic, professional, institutional, or personal interest in the research. This statement should appear in a separate section before the reference list. If no conflict exists, authors should state: “The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.”

Funding: Authors must indicate any source of funding for their research, whether from a public or private entity, including the name and location of the funder and the funding number, where applicable. If the research received no funding, this should be clearly stated.

Data availability: For research articles, authors are encouraged to include a data availability statement indicating whether the data supporting the findings are available and, if so, where they can be accessed. If data cannot be shared because of privacy, ethical, legal, institutional, or consent restrictions, the reason should be stated.

14. Clinical Trial Registration and Protocols

Clinical trials should be registered in a publicly accessible clinical trial registry before enrolment of the first participant. The trial registration number and registry name should be included in the manuscript, where applicable.

For interventional studies, authors should report whether a protocol exists and where it can be accessed, where applicable. Any important deviations from the protocol should be explained.

15. Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI-assisted Tools

Any use of artificial intelligence or AI-assisted tools in the preparation of the manuscript must be disclosed in the cover letter and in the manuscript, including the name of the tool and a brief description of how it was used.

AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, and accountability requirements of scholarly authorship.

Authors remain fully responsible for all manuscript content, including any text, data analysis, references, images, or translations generated or assisted by AI tools. Authors should verify accuracy, avoid fabricated references, protect confidential data, and ensure that the use of such tools complies with ethical and legal requirements.

16. Files Required at Submission

Each manuscript submission should include the following files:

1. Title page: The title page should include the article title (up to 12 words), full names of all authors, institutional affiliations, address, email address and telephone number of the corresponding author, author ORCID iDs where available, acknowledgements, funding information, conflict-of-interest statement, and any previous presentation or publication of the work. The title page may include information in English and, where requested by the Editorial Office, Greek.
2. Main manuscript file: The main file must be anonymized and must not contain author-identifying information. It should include the abstract, keywords, main text, references, tables, figures, graphs, author contribution statement, conflict-of-interest statement, funding statement, data availability statement where applicable, and acknowledgements only if these do not compromise anonymity during review.
3. Cover letter: The cover letter should include required submission declarations, ethics approval and informed consent statements where applicable, conflict-of-interest and funding statements, confirmation of originality and exclusive submission, disclosure of any previous publication, permission statements for reproduced material, and disclosure of any AI-assisted tools used in manuscript preparation.
4. Supplementary files: Where applicable, authors should submit reporting checklists, flow diagrams, trial registration information, study protocols, permission letters, data availability information, questionnaires, instruments, and supplementary material intended for online publication.

17. Tables, Figures, Images, and Graphs

Tables should be prepared with 1.5 line spacing on separate pages. They should be numbered according to their order of appearance in the text using Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc.) and should be accompanied by brief, informative captions. All tables should be placed after the reference list unless the submission system requires separate files.

Figures and images must be cited in the text and numbered with Arabic numerals according to their order of appearance. The source must be provided where applicable, and permission must be obtained for any previously published material.

Graphs must be cited in the text and numbered with Arabic numerals. Graphs should be clear, readable, and accompanied by appropriate titles, legends, axis labels, units of measurement, and explanatory notes where necessary.

Tables, figures, and graphs should complement the text rather than duplicate it. Authors should ensure that all numerical values are consistent between the text, tables, figures, and supplementary material.

Files should be submitted in Word format. Tables, figures, graphs, and supplementary material may be requested as separate files during submission or revision.

18. Statistical and Methodological Reporting

For quantitative studies, authors should describe the statistical methods in sufficient detail to allow an informed reader to evaluate the analysis. This includes the statistical tests used, software where relevant, level of statistical significance, treatment of missing data, and measures of uncertainty such as confidence intervals where appropriate.

For qualitative studies, authors should describe the methodological approach, sampling strategy, data collection, analysis process, researcher reflexivity where relevant, and steps taken to enhance trustworthiness, such as triangulation, member checking, audit trail, or peer debriefing, where applicable.

For surveys and instruments, authors should describe development, translation, validation, reliability, scoring, and permission to use the instrument, where applicable.

19. Declarations (mandatory)

Authors must include the following statements before the reference list. If a specific item is not applicable, this should be explicitly stated (where applicable).

1. Ethical Approval
2. Informed Consent
3. Conflict of Interest
4. Funding
5. Author Contributions (CRediT)
6. Data Availability Statement
7. Acknowledgements (optional)
8. Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools

20. References

References should follow the Harvard referencing system. Authors are responsible for the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of all references. Every source cited in the text must appear in the reference list, and every item in the reference list must be cited in the text.

Authors should use recent and relevant literature where appropriate, while also citing foundational sources when necessary. Excessive self-citation or irrelevant citation should be avoided.

Examples:

Evthymoglou, P. G. and Xepapadeas, A. P. (1990) Public enterprises: theoretical and applied approach. Piraeus: Stamoulis.

Liu, P. (2014) “Analysis and comparison on novel sensor network security access technology”, Sensors & Transducers, 162(1), pp. 76-84.

Milroy, S. (2002) Net mobile web developers guide. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/book/9781928994565

Press, W. H., Teukolsky, S. A., Vetterling, W. T. and Flannery, B. P. (2007) Numerical recipes: the art of scientific computing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

21. Copyright

The submission of a manuscript implies that it has not been published previously, is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and, if accepted, will not be published elsewhere in English or any other language without the written consent of the publisher.

A condition of publication is the granting to the Journal of the exclusive right to use the article. Once the article has been accepted, authors are required to submit a scanned copyright transfer form signed by all authors.

22. Publication Fee

There is no publication fee.

23. Pre-submission Checklist

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should ensure that:

• The manuscript is written in clear English and follows the Journal’s formatting requirements.
• The main manuscript file has been anonymized for peer review.
• The title page includes complete author and corresponding-author information.
• The abstract is structured correctly and includes four to six keywords.
• Ethics approval, informed consent, and participant confidentiality have been addressed where applicable.
• Conflict-of-interest, funding, author-contribution, and data-availability statements have been included where applicable.
• All tables, figures, graphs, and supplementary files are cited in the text and numbered correctly.
• Permission has been obtained for any material reproduced from another source.
• The appropriate reporting checklist has been completed and submitted where applicable.
• All references are accurate, complete, and formatted according to the Harvard system.
• The cover letter includes all required declarations, including any use of AI-assisted tools.

24. Editorial Note on This Revised Version

This edited version has been revised as an English-language edition and has been expanded to include clearer submission requirements and additional guidance on manuscript structure, peer review, reporting guidelines, authorship criteria, research ethics, participant confidentiality, clinical trial registration, data availability, AI-assisted writing tools, plagiarism and publication integrity, statistical and methodological reporting, ORCID iDs, supplementary files, and a pre-submission checklist.