Established on DEC 1, 2015
Last revised on January 1, 2024

Instructions for authors

The Pediatric Emergency Medicine Journal (Pediatr Emerg Med J, PEMJ; pISSN 2383-4897, eISSN 2508-5506) is the official peer-reviewed journal of the Korean Society of Pediatric Emergency Medicine (KSPEM). The KSPEM holds the copyright on all submitted articles. It launched on June 30, 2014. The journal was issued biannually on the last days of June and December until December 31, 2022. From January 1, 2023, it is published quarterly on the first day of January, April, July, and October. Supplement issues may be published. The journal is operated according to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing 4th ed (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing). PEMJ is an open access journal. All articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The journal is indexed in KoreaMed (https://koreamed.org/), Synapse (https://synapse.koreamed.org/), KMbase (https://kmbase.medric.or.kr/), Korea Citation Index (https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/main.kci), and Directory of Open Access Journals (https://doaj.org/).

Manuscripts for submission to PEMJ should be prepared according to the following instructions. For issues not addressed in these instructions, authors should refer to the Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals by the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editor, https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/), and Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors, KAMJE, https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=13&per_page=).

1-1. Aims and scope

PEMJ aims at worldwide pediatricians, emergency physicians, and other health care providers or researchers who care for ill or injured infants, children or adolescents, or are interested in pediatric emergency medicine. Readers of the journal can obtain academic or updated information for relevant practice or research. In addition, the readership can be expanded to clinicians, researchers or policymakers who would like to access recent information or trends on pediatric emergency medicine.

There are no specific contribution requirements, but the content should be in accord with the scope of the journal. The journal scope embraces both basic and clinical research of pediatric emergency medicine. In detail, we publish articles regarding abuse-and-assault, adolescents, allergy-immunology-and-rheumatology, behavioral-and-psychiatric, cardiovascular, critical care-and-resuscitation, dentistry, dermatology, editing-writing-and-publishing, endocrinology-and-metabolism, environmental injury, epidemiology, ethics, foreign body, gastroenterology-hepatology-and-nutrition, genetics, gynecology, hemato-oncology, head injury, imaging, infection, laboratory medicine, informatics, musculoskeletal-and-orthopedics, neonatology, nephrology-and-urology, neurology-and-neurosurgery, nursing, otolaryngology-and-ophthalmology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, procedure, rehabilitation-and-sports medicine, respiratory, sedation-and-analgesia, surgery, toxicology, trauma, and miscellaneous. We may publish articles on studies performed outside emergency departments if the articles state a pediatric emergency medicine perspective.

PEMJ publishes original articles, reviews, editorials, case reports, brief communications, correspondences, and special contributions.

1-2. Editorial policy

The editorial board presumes that all authors listed in a manuscript have agreed to the following policy of PEMJ on submission of manuscript.

Any authors may submit manuscripts of original articles, reviews, editorials, brief communications, correspondences, and special contributions written in Korean or English, and case reports only in English. Except for negotiated secondary publications, manuscripts submitted to the journal must be previously unpublished and not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The editorial board reserves the right to make corrections, both literary and technical, to the papers. Under any circumstances, the identities of the reviewers will not be revealed. It is the author's responsibility to ensure that a patient's anonymity be carefully protected, to verify that any experimental investigation with human participants reported in the manuscript was performed with informed consent, and to follow all guidelines for experimental investigation with human participants required by the institution(s) with which all the authors are affiliated.

If an author should be added or deleted after the submission, it is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain the consent of all authors and submit an authorship change agreement with all co-authors’ signatures to the editorial board for approval. The editorial board has no responsibility for such changes.

PEMJ is published quarterly on the first day of JAN, APR, JUL, and OCT (from 2023). All published articles become permanent properties of KSPEM and they may not be published elsewhere without written permission.

1-3. Subscription information

The PEMJ is freely distributed to members of the KSPEM and relevant institutions. Full text files are also freely available at the official (https://www.pemj.org) and mobile (pemj.org/m) websites. For subscription, please contact us.

1-4. Contact us

PEMJ editorial office
The Korean Society of Pediatric Emergency Medicine
Chungmu-building office 213, 197, Toegye-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul 04557, Korea
TEL: +82-2-3674-7888, FAX: +82-2-3674-7889
E-mail: pemoffice@kspem.org, Website: https://kspem.org/

Regarding policies on research and publication ethics not addressed in these instructions, authors should refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on good publication (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts), the Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals by the ICMJE (http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/) or Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals (KAMJE, https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=13&per_page=).

2-1. Statement of human and animal rights and informed consent

Any investigations involving humans and animals should be approved by the institutional review board (IRB) or institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC), respectively, of the institution where the study took place. In addition, investigations with pathogens requiring a high degree of biosafety should obtain approval by relevant committee (institutional biosafety committee). Informed consent should be obtained, unless waived by the IRB, from patients (or legal guardians) who participated in clinical investigations. Human participants should not be identifiable, such that patients' names, initials, hospital numbers, dates of birth or other protected healthcare information should not be disclosed. If experiments involve animals, the research should be based on national or institutional guidelines for animal care and use. Original articles submitted to PEMJ that address any investigation involving humans and animals should include a description about whether the study was conducted under an approval by the IRB (with or without patient informed consent) or IACUC, respectively. IRB no. is required for submission process, and if absent, the process cannot proceed.
PEMJ can request an approval by the IRB or IACUC when necessary. It is noteworthy that a Korean act of bioethics and biosafety was revised on November 11, 2014.

2-2. Authorship

The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflicts of interest (COI) forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely manner, and should be available to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information or questions about the paper even after publication. Authors may appeal against the editorial decisions by e-mail (pemoffice@kspem.org). The appeals are processed according to the procedures set by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts).

Authors must meet all aspects of the following 4 criteria: (1) Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data for the work; (2) Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; (3) Final approval of the version to be published; and (4) Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. Any persons who do not meet any aspect of the above criteria, may be listed as contributors in the Acknowledgments section.

Up to 2 first or corresponding authors are allowed. The footnote should indicate that both first or corresponding authors contributed equally to the paper. The editorial board does not allow adding authors or changing the first or the corresponding authors once manuscripts are accepted. Any change in the byline (addition or deletion of authors, change in the name order) requires a letter signed by all authors indicating agreement with the same. The editorial board has no responsibility for such changes.

2-3. Originality and duplicate publication

Manuscripts under review or published by other journals will not be accepted for publication in PEMJ, and articles published in this journal are not allowed to be reproduced in whole or in part in any type of publication without permission of the editorial board. Figures and tables can be used freely if original source is verified according to Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. It is mandatory for all authors to resolve any copyright issues when citing a figure or table from a different journal that is not open access.

2-4. Secondary publication

It is possible to republish manuscripts if the manuscripts satisfy the condition of secondary publication of ICMJE as followings: certain types of articles, such as guidelines produced by governmental agencies and professional organizations, may need to reach the widest possible audience. In such instances, editors sometimes deliberately publish material that is also being published in other journals, with the agreement of the authors and the editors of those journals. Secondary publication for various other reasons, in the same or another language, especially in other countries, is justifiable and can be beneficial provided that the following conditions are met. The authors should receive approval from the editors of both journals (the editor concerned with secondary publication must have a photocopy, reprint, or manuscript of the primary version). The priority of the primary publication is respected by a publication interval of at least 1 week (unless specifically negotiated otherwise by both editors).

The paper for secondary publication is intended for a different group of readers; an abbreviated version could be sufficient. The secondary version faithfully reflects the data and interpretations of the primary version. The footnote on the title page of the secondary version informs readers, peers, and documenting agencies that the paper has been published in whole or in part and states the primary reference. A suitable footnote might read: “This article is based on a study first reported in the title of journal, with full reference.”

2-5. Conflicts of interest

COI may exist when an author (or the author’s institution or employer) has financial or personal relationships or affiliations that could bias the author’s decisions regarding the manuscript. Authors are expected to provide detailed information about all relevant financial interests and relationships or financial conflicts, particularly those present at the time the research was conducted and through publication, as well as other financial interests (such as patent applications in preparation), that represent potential future financial gain. All disclosures of any potential COI, including specific financial interests and relationships and affiliations (other than those affiliations listed in the title page of the manuscript) relevant to the subject of their manuscript will be disclosed by the corresponding author on behalf of each coauthor, if any, as part of the submission process. Likewise, authors without COI will be requested to state so as part of the submission process. If authors are uncertain about what constitutes a relevant financial interest or relationship, they should contact the editorial board. Failure to include this information in the manuscript will prohibit commencement of the review process of the manuscript. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s disclosures of COI, relevant financial interests and affiliations, and declarations of no such interests will be published. The policy requesting disclosure of COI applies for all manuscript submissions. If an author’s disclosure of potential COI is determined to be inaccurate or incomplete after publication, an erratum will be published to rectify the original published disclosure statement. Authors are also required to report detailed information regarding all financial and material support for the research and work, including but not limited to grant support, funding sources, and provision of equipment and supplies as part of the submission process. For all accepted manuscripts, each author’s source of funding will be published. The authors should disclose all potential COI. If there is a disclosure, the editors, reviewers, and readers can interpret the manuscripts with this understanding.

If a co-author is in a personal relationship with another (e.g., a person younger than 19 years, a spouse or a first-degree cousin), this should be marked in the byline with related facts written in a footnote. If necessary, the editorial board may request consent to provide personal information from the corresponding author, or an investigation from the affiliated institution. If a research misconduct by co-authors in a personal relationship is confirmed, the related fact can be notified to the relevant institution (e.g., advancement, employment, promotion, and research funding order, etc.) from which the author took advantage.

2-6. Process to manage research and publication misconduct

When the editorial board faces suspected cases of research and publication misconduct such as duplicate publication, plagiarism, fraudulent or fabricated data, changes in authorship, undisclosed COI, ethical problem, a reviewer who has appropriated an author’s idea or data, complaints against editors, and etc., the resolving process will follow the flowchart provided by COPE (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Flowcharts). The Research Ethics and COI subcommittee makes decisions on suspected cases. The Editor-in-Chief serves as the chairperson of the subcommittee, and the composition of the subcommittee is posted on the journal website. In this process, a debatable matter may be consulted to KAMJE.

2-7. Data sharing

The journal encourages authors to state the data sharing in their submission. Authors may state linking to a repository or declaring confidentiality of the data. Since 2019, all manuscripts reporting clinical trials must be submitted with a data sharing statement (Table 1). If authors describe this in their manuscripts, the description will be published alongside their manuscripts.

Table 1. Examples of data sharing statements that fulfill the ICMJE requirements

2-8. Intellectual property

All published articles become permanent intellectual properties of the KSPEM, and they may not be published elsewhere without written permission. Copyrights of the articles are owned by the KSPEM. PEMJ is an open access journal. All articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

2-9. Post-publication discussions and corrections

The post-publication discussion is available via the correspondences. Readers can express a concern about a published article by submitting a correspondence on the article within 8 weeks of publication. In a case of error in the article, it can be corrected through the author’s reply to the correspondence, erratum or retraction.

2-10. Preprint policy

PEMJ allows submission of manuscripts that have previously been posted on preprint servers. In such cases, the authors should state the preprint server deposition with DOI in the cover letter. Once the article is published in PEMJ, the preprint should be linked to the PEMJ version via DOI (e.g., “This article has been published in the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Journal following peer review and can be viewed on [DOI].”), and the PEMJ version should be cited, instead of the preprint. Citation of preprint is not allowed.

2-11. Use of artificial Intelligence (AI)

Authors may use generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (e.g., ChatGPT) to improve the readability and language in their manuscript. However, such technologies should be used with human oversight and control to ensure that the output generated is accurate. Authors should carefully review and edit the output generated by AI and AI-assisted technologies because the output may be plausible but incorrect. Authors should not list AI and AI-assisted technologies as an author, nor cite AI as an author because authorship requires the authors to have responsibilities and tasks that can only be endowed to humans. When submitting a manuscript prepared with the help of generative AI, authors should disclose the name of the specific technology used and the scope of its use in the methods or acknowledgements sections. This policy does not apply to the use of basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, and other routine tasks. Please note that authors are ultimately responsible for the contents of their work, including the use of AI and AI-assisted technologies. By following the policy, authors can ensure that the use of AI in manuscript preparation is transparent, responsible, and compliant with best practices in scientific research.

2-12. Editorial responsibilities

The editorial board will continuously work towards monitoring and safeguarding publication ethics: guidelines for retracting articles; plagiarism screening for all manuscripts (https://crosscheck.ithenticate.com/en_us/login), maintenance of the integrity of the academic record; preclusion of business needs from compromising intellectual and ethical standard; publishing errata, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed; avoiding plagiarism, and fraudulent data. The responsibilities of the editorial board shall include: responsibility and authority to reject or accept article; avoid COI with respect to articles they reject/accept; acceptance of a paper when reasonably certain; promoting publication of erratum or retraction when errors are found; preservation of the anonymity of reviewers.

3-1. Categories of manuscripts
PEMJ publishes original article, review, editorial, case report, brief communication, correspondence, and special contribution (Table 2).

• Original article: Original investigations in areas relevant to pediatric emergency medicine. Maximum 4,000 words, 10 tables or figures, and 30 references. Include a structured abstract and its length should not exceed 300 words. Additional material may be placed in appendices. Systematic reviews are critical assessments and evaluations of research (not simply summaries) that attempt to address a focused clinical question using methods designed to reduce the likelihood of bias. Meta-analyses combine this with aggregate analyses. This kind of manuscripts should be structured into the subheadings: introduction, main subject, and conclusion. Such articles must be compliant with relevant guidelines and include a narrative abstract and its length should not exceed 300 words. In case of systematic review, the length is limited to 5,000-8,000 words with a maximum of 100 references.
• Review: Clinical reviews should address specific clinical questions or relevant issues. Such articles should summarize current research relevant to the questions they address, be evidence-based to the extent possible, be balanced, and detail the importance of the questions or issues. Include a narrative abstract and its length should not exceed 300 words. Do not combine a case report with your review. This kind of manuscripts should be structured into the subheadings: introduction, main subject, and conclusion. The length is limited to 5,000-8,000 words with a maximum of 100 references.
• Case report: Case report must be a brief description of a previously undocumented disease process, a unique manifestation or treatment of a known disease process or unreported complications of treatment regimens. Entities previously reported elsewhere must be extremely important to be considered. Include a narrative abstract with keywords, introduction, case, discussion focusing on the implications of the case reported, references, and figures or tables. Maximum 1,500 words, 20 references, and 4 tables or figures. The abstracts should not exceed 200 words. From 2024, case reports are published only in English.
• Correspondence: Discussion, observations, opinions, corrections, and comments on topics appearing in PEMJ; very brief reports or other items of interest. Letters discussing a PEMJ article should be received within 8 weeks of the article's publication. The original authors will be given the opportunity to reply. Letters of topics unrelated to the science of medicine, as well as those containing personal criticisms, will not be published. An abstract is not required. Maximum 500 words, 5 references.
• Brief communication: This kind of manuscript should be prepared in the following sequence: title page, abstract with key words, text without section titles, acknowledgments (if necessary), references, and tables or figures. Maximums: narrative abstract, 100 words; word counts of the text, 1,500 words; number of references, 20; figures, 2; table, 1.
• Editorials: Authoritative comments or opinions on controversial matters with significant implications for pediatric emergency medicine; or, qualified, thorough analysis and criticism of PEMJ articles. Maximum 1,500 words.
• Special contribution: This kind of manuscript does not conform to a traditional format. Please discuss with the editorial board before submission.
• Authors should discuss with the editorial board if their article exceeds the maximum number of words, figures or tables allowed.

Table 2. Recommended maximums for articles submitted to the PEMJ

3-2. Reporting guidelines for specific study designs

For the specific study design, such as randomized control studies, studies of diagnostic accuracy, meta-analyses, observational studies, and non-randomized studies, it is recommended that the authors follow the reporting guidelines listed in Table 3.

Table 3. Reporting guidelines

3-3. Registration of clinical trial research

Any research that deals with a clinical trial should be registered to the primary registry, such as the WHO International Clinical Trials Portal (https://www.who.int/clinical-trials-registry-platform), NIH ClinicalTrials.gov (https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/), ISRCTN Resister (https://www.isrctn.com/), and Clinical research information system (https://cris.nih.go.kr/cris/index.jsp). The clinical trial registration number should be published at the end of the abstract.

3-4. Preparing manuscripts

• We accept manuscripts written in English or Korean, except case reports (only in English). Even in Korean manuscripts, title page, abstract with keywords, references, tables, figures, and figure legends must be written in English. Authors who are non-native speakers should receive English-editing service. All text files should be in Microsoft Word format (doc or docx, 2007 and above), and all figures need to be in JPG/JPEG/TIFF/PPT format. Files should not be uploaded as PDF. The manuscript should be typed in a 12-point font and double-spaced on A4 with 1 inch-margin on both sides. We recommend to use the manuscript template (download from https://submit.pemj.org/).
• The manuscript should be organized in the following order: full title page (including all the authors’ details) as a separate file; blinded main document in a single file, which starts with abstract with keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments (optional), references, and figure legends. Tables and figures should be uploaded separately.
• The use of abbreviations should be minimized. When used, they should be fully described at first appearance in the text and described in the parenthesis. Use of Korean terms need to be consistent with the latest version of lexicon published from Korean Medical Association (http://term.kma.org/index.asp). If Korean terms are unavailable (medical terms, proper nouns, place names, drug names or units), authors may use English terms. Even if Korean terms are poorly understandable, authors should use only Korean terms after describing the corresponding English terms in parentheses at first appearance. Leave blanks between English words and subsequent parentheses (c.f., no blanks between Korean words and parentheses).
• Radiation measurements and laboratory values should be in accordance with the International System of Units (SI). However, some customarily used units (e.g., mmHg) are acceptable. Leave blanks in front of units except % and ℃. P values should be typed in capital letters not in italics in the text (“P”) and should be marked as “P value” in the table.
• PEMJ performs double-blinded review of the submitted manuscripts. The authors' names, affiliations, and any other remarks that may identify the authors should not appear in the main document, figures, and appendices for the blinded review. In case identifying details are found, the editorial board will ask the corresponding author to re-upload the files after deleting such details before referring peer review.
• The names and locations (city or province/country or state) of the manufacturers of equipment and generic names should be given.
• If you need subheadings, you should number them in following order: 1., 2., 3., 4., 1), 2), 3), 4), a., b., c., d.
• Please also refer to PEMJ article templates and recent articles for style.
• English manuscripts (or English abstracts of Korean manuscripts) written by non-native authors require English editing. In review process, an editor or reviewer may request proof of the editing.

3-5. Title page
Include the following items on the full title page.

Table 4. CRediT statements

Example:
Author contributions
Conceptualization: NE Kim, H Ahn, and KY Seo.
Methodology: NE Kim, H Ahn, and KY Seo.
Software: NE Kim, H Ahn, and KY Seo.
Validation: I Jun, T Kim, and KY Seo.
Formal analysis: NE Kim and H Ahn.
Investigation: NE Kim and H Ahn.
Resources: H Ahn and KY Seo.
Data curation: NE Kim and H Ahn.
Writing-original draft: NE Kim and H Ahn.
Writing-review and editing: all authors.
Visualization: NE Kim and H Ahn.
Supervision: I Jun, T Kim, and KY Seo.
Project administration: KY Seo.
Funding acquisition: KY Seo.
Approval of final manuscript: all authors.

3-6. Main body

The main body is a blinded document for review and should contain the following components in a single file, which starts with abstract and keywords, introduction, methods, results, discussion, acknowledgments (optional), references, and figure legends. Tables and figures should not be embedded in the text.

1. Abstract
   Abstracts for original articles should be 300 words or less, and structured into the subheadings: Purpose, Methods (include information on design, setting, participants, interventions, and main outcomes measured), Results, and Conclusion. But narrative abstracts are necessary in review, case report, and brief communication. In your results, you should emphasize the magnitude of findings over test statistics, ideally including the size of effect and its confidence intervals for the principal outcomes. Citations should not be used in the abstract. Abbreviations should be minimized and, if used, must be defined within the abstract by the full term followed by its abbreviation in parentheses. Keywords should be listed using 5-10 Medical Subject Headings (MeSH, https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search) joined by semicolons. In case of an RCT, the trials registry number should appear after the conclusion (e.g., NCT01616745).
2. Main body
   (1) Introduction: The most effective introduction section should concisely argue how the topic is new, scientifically important, and clinically relevant. Usually, we recommend three paragraphs: The first paragraph to describe the circumstances or historical context that led you to investigate the issue. The second to describe why your investigation is consequential. What are its potential implications? How does it relate to issues raised in the first paragraph? Why is this specific investigation the next logical step? The last to explain the goals of this investigation: Clearly state the specific research objective or hypothesis and your primary outcome measure.
   (2) Methods:
   - This section should include subsections with contents that detail the study design, study setting and population, study protocol, measurements or key outcome measures, and data analysis (include sample size determinations and other relevant information, the names of statistical tests, and software used).
   - The role of funding organizations and sponsors in the conduct and reporting of the study should be included here.
   - When equipment is used in a study, provide the model name and manufacturer.
   - If citing an in-press paper for the description of methods, please upload a copy of the in-press paper for the editor and reviewers. This in-press material will be handled with appropriate confidentiality.
   - Research involving human participants or animals must meet local, legal and institutional requirements, and generally accepted ethical principles such as those set out in the Nuremberg Code, the Belmont Report, or the Declaration of Helsinki.
   - Manuscripts reporting data involving human participants must indicate a positive review by an IRB or equivalent. This requirement includes studies that qualify for IRB expedited status. Most institutions require IRB review of studies that qualify for exempt status and that this determination be made by the IRB, not by the authors. The “Methods” section of the manuscript must explicitly state that IRB approval was obtained, that the IRB determined the study was exempt, or that the study did not involve human participants (e.g., publicly available and previously de-identified information from national data sets, or other studies not meeting the definition of human participants research, additional information available at www.hhs.gov/ohrp/policy/cdebiol.html). IRB approval number should be typed after this remark (e.g., IRB no. ##-##-###). The “Methods” section should also indicate the type of consent used (written, verbal, or waived), and confirm that consent was obtained from all participants (unless waived by the IRB).
   - Manuscripts reporting the results of investigations of live vertebrate animals must indicate approval by an IACUC or equivalent. We reserve the right to request submission of IRB or IACUC documentation at any time.
   - When working with administrative databases, authors should be diligent in checking the validity of variables (e.g., by cross-checking with other variables in the dataset) and patterns of missing data. Both of these factors can bias results. Authors should also recognize that causal inferences are generally limited when interpreting results from administrative data sources. For analyses using probability samples, care should be taken to use clusters, strata and weights in analyses and that substantially restricting such samples (e.g., to small age groups) may create bias and unusual associations between variables.
   - Authors considering performing survey projects and submitting survey manuscript should review the following commentary, which discusses some of the key features of survey methodology. (Mello MJ, Merchant RC, Clark MA. Surveying emergency medicine. Acad Emerg Med 2013;20(4):409-12.)
   (3) Results: This section should be concise, and include the statistical analysis. Results presented in tables or figures should be referred to in the text, but the material should not be presented again. In addition to the data collected in the study, the results should also indicate the success of protocol implementation (e.g., was blinding successful, was there a high inter-rater reliability?). In keeping with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine regarding gender-specific research, ensure correct use of the terms sex (when reporting biological factors) and gender (identity, psychosocial or cultural factors). We ask that “all papers reporting the outcomes of clinical trials report on men and women separately unless a trial is of a sex-specific condition (such as endometrial or prostatic cancer).” (Women’s Health Research: Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise; National Academies Press 2010, available at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07399332.2011.562837). If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify the reasons, except in obvious cases.
   (4) Discussion: Briefly summarize the results and how they relate to your area of investigation. Consider only those published articles directly relevant to interpreting your results and placing them in context. Do not stress statistical significance over clinical importance. Do not use a separate conclusion section, but instead append it as the last paragraph of the Discussion beginning something like: "In summary . . .” Take care that the conclusion is restricted to what can be justified by your experimental results. Discuss shortcomings and biases related to study design and execution.
3. Acknowledgments (optional):
   Persons who have made substantial contribution, but who are not eligible as authors are named in the acknowledgments.
4. References
   1) The list should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. 1) The list should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text. In the text, citations are marked with numbers in parentheses. If the surnames of the cited authors are given in the text, citations are indicated right after the surname. Otherwise, they are d at the end of the sentence. In the former case, the last names of all authors are written for one or two authors (e.g., Kim (1), Lee and Park (2)), and only the first author is recorded for three or more (e.g., Chung et al. (3)).
   2) The abbreviated journal title should be used according to the NLM catalog (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals) or the KoreaMed (https://www.koreamed.org/).
   3) If there are six or fewer authors in a reference, list all authors. If the number of authors is greater than six, list the initial six authors, and then abbreviate the rest of the authors with by “et al.”
   4) Personal communications and unpublished data should be cited in the body of the paper in parentheses, not listed in the references section. Manuscripts that have been accepted for publication may be listed as “Forthcoming”; manuscripts that have been submitted or are under revision but have not been accepted should not be cited as references.
   5) The use of abstracts that have not been published as full manuscripts is discouraged.
   6) Authors are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the references and text citations.
   7) Number of references is limited to 100 in reviews, 30 in original articles (but, 100 in systematic reviews), 20 in case reports and brief communications, and 5 in correspondences. The style and punctuation for references should follow the format illustrated in the following examples. For types not addressed in these examples, the author is referred to the Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals by the ICMJE (https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/), and Good Publication Practice Guidelines for Medical Journals, 2nd ed (KAMJE, https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=13&per_page=).
   
   JOURNAL ARTICLE
   1. Hong JS, Kim MJ, Jeong JY, Kim JS, Hong ES. Influenza A virus associated febrile seizures in pediatric emergency department during influenza seasons. Pediatr Emerg Med J 2014;1:89-95.
   JOURNAL ARTICLE published electronically ahead of the print version
   2. Bellini T, Piccotti E. A potential impact of the donning and doffing policy on emergency department length of stay during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Pediatr Emerg Med J 2021 Apr 19 [Epub]. https://doi.org/10.22470/pemj.2021.00227.
   BOOK CHAPTER
   3. Meltzer PS, Kallioniemi A. Trent JM. Chromosome alterations in human solid tumors. In: Vogelstein B, Kinzler KW, editors. The genetics basis of human cancer. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2002. p. 93-113.
   ONLINE
   4. Statistics Korea. Cause of death statistics [Internet]. Daejeon (Korea): Statistics Korea; c2015 [cited 2015 Sep 20]. Available from: http://kostat.go.kr/portal/english/surveyOutlines/1/2/index.static.
   5. HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC). Human Gene Nomenclature database search engine. Accessed March 14, 2018. http://www.genenames.org
   6. Khan Academy health and medicine YouTube page. Accessed February 10, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademymedicine
   
5. Tables
   Tables should be referenced in the main text in sequential order, and uploaded separately with the text. A descriptive title that is composed of a phrase without a period at the top of the table. Define all abbreviations in a footnote to the table. If necessary, footnote signs can be used as listed order; *, †, ‡, §, ||, ¶, **, ††, ‡‡, §§, ||||, ¶¶. If a table has been previously published should be accompanied by the written consent of the copyright holder and the footnote must acknowledge the original source. Tables should be typed in English.
6. Figures and legends
   Figures must be referenced in the text in sequential order. Figures should clarify and augment the text. Each figure should be submitted on a separate page. Legends should be typed in 12-point font, double-spaced, and located after the references with the titles in clauses. Figures in PDF are not acceptable. Photographs must be submitted electronically according to the following specifications: color photographs should be saved as TIF files in RGB at a minimum of 12.5 cm (5 in.) in width at 300 dpi; black and white photographs should be saved as TIF files in grayscale at a minimum of 12.5 cm (5 in.) in width at 300 dpi. Authors should note that all photographs with discriminability of the patients’ identity (not limited to the face) must be submitted with the publication of patient information form and the authors take the legal responsibility in case of lawsuits. Symbols, arrows or letters used to identify parts of the figures must be explained clearly in the legend. The illustrations of pathological tissue should state clearly the type of stain and the magnifying power (e.g., H&E, ×400), and the main contents should be marked by signs or arrows on the picture. Line drawings should be original copies. A previously published figure should be accompanied by the footnote acknowledging the original source and the consent of copyright holder.
7. Video
   Videos should be submitted in .mp4 format with a 16:9 ratio, and the size should not exceed 50 Mb. In the text, briefly describe the title, contents, recording date and place of the video in a format similar to the figure legends. If images can identify the patient (not limited to the face), the author must submit a publication of patient information form, and the legal responsibility for this lies entirely with the author.

4-1. First submission

4-2. Revision

The corresponding authors will receive an email with attached proofs in Microsoft Word format. The editorial board retains the prerogatives to question the authors about major alterations that might affect the scientific content of the manuscripts. The authors should minimize revisions other than correcting errors or answering the editorial queries. If the author-corrected proofs are not returned within 48 hours, the editorial board proceed with the publication, regarding the absence of reply as the agreement on the editorial corrections. The authors are responsible for any fault found after the publication.

7-1. Copyrights

Copyrights of all published materials are owned by the KSPEM and must not be published elsewhere without written permission. The form of copyright transfer form is available from the journal website and submission system.

7-2. APC

Since July 1, 2019, authors are required to pay APC of 200 USD (200,000 KRW) upon the acceptance. Waiver of the APC is applied to any solicited or review articles. Authors are also charged for color printing of figures unless the printing is considered necessary by the editorial board (e.g., endoscopic finding, skin lesion or pathology). PEMJ does not provide reprint service.

The journal is accessible at KoreaMed (https://koreamed.org/), Synapse (https://synapse.koreamed.org/), KMbase (https://kmbase.medric.or.kr/), Korea Citation Index (https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/main.kci), Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.co.kr), National Assembly Library of Korea (https://www.nanet.go.kr/main.do), and National Library of Korea (http://nl.go.kr) in the event the journal is no longer published.

Revenue sources of the journal include APC, financial support from the KSPEM, advertisement, and the governmental funds.

Academic contents and editorial decisions of the PEMJ are independent from commercial interests or specific contracts with advertisers. The journal reserves the right to decline any type of advertisement that is harmful to the value of the journal. Advertisements should clearly identify the advertiser and the product or service being offered. PEMJ do not allow exaggerated copy and any links between specific advertisements and specific articles, of which contents are related to the products being advertised.

Journal propagation has been done through the journal website and distribution of the journals. Invitations to submit a manuscript are usually focused on the members of the relevant societies, presenters at conferences, seminars or workshops if the topic is relevant to the aims and scope.