BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health publishes material on contraception, abortion, menopause, sexual and reproductive health, sexual dysfunction, sexually transmitted infection, clinical practice, and health education and training. We welcome submissions of research, reviews, and articles and commentaries relevant to all health care professionals working in the area of sexual and reproductive health. While it is not currently a requirement, we actively encourage patient involvement in the design, analysis and presentation of research. All submitted articles are assessed by the Editor-in-Chief. Those considered likely to be of interest to our readers are assigned to an Associate Editor and reviewed externally, usually by at least two independent experts.

Policy decisions regarding content and related matters are made by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, in consultation with members of the Editorial Board, who actively participate in the peer review process. Please follow our Instructions for Authors to facilitate the prompt consideration of your article. 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 and promoting your paper. You may also wish to use the language editing and translation services provided by BMJ Author Services.

Articles are published under an exclusive licence or non-exclusive licence for UK Crown employees or where BMJ has agreed CC BY applies. For US Federal Government officers or employees acting as part of their official duties, the terms are as stated in accordance with our licence terms. Authors or their employers retain copyright. Open access articles can be reused under the terms of the relevant Creative Commons licence to facilitate reuse of the content; please refer to the BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health Author Licence for the applicable Creative Commons licences”.

When publishing in BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health, authors choose between three licence types – exclusive licence granted to BMJ, CC-BY-NC and CC-BY (Creative Commons open access licences require payment of an article publishing charge). 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 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.

Articles submitted to BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health are subject to peer review. In most instances we aim for two external opinions (and often additional statistical assessment) for reasons of fairness and science. The journal is not prepared to compromise on this stance. The journal operates single anonymised peer review whereby the names of the reviewers are hidden from the author; Manuscripts authored by a member of a journal’s editorial team are independently peer reviewed; an editor will have no input or influence on the peer review process or publication decision for their own article. 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. During the submission process, authors must not suggest reviewers who are current or recent colleagues of themselves or their co-authors. For more information about suggesting reviewers please visit our Author Hub. 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 www.ithenticate.com.

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 BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health 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 Article Transfer Service Manager for more information or assistance.

BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health 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.

The EQUATOR Network is an excellent resource for reporting guidelines for a wide range of study types and contains many useful resources for authors. All research articles should be written in accordance with the relevant research reporting guideline. Information on the different types of checklists is available via our Author Hub.

Please upload the relevant completed checklist for your study type with your submission, and label it “Research checklist”. If no relevant checklist is available for your study type, this can be indicated on the submission form.

BMJ encourages active patient and public involvement in clinical research as part of its patient and public partnership strategy. To support co-production of research we request that authors provide a Patient and Public Involvement statement in the methods section of their papers, under the subheading ‘Patient and public involvement’. We appreciate that patient and public involvement is relatively new and may not be feasible or appropriate for all papers. However, the papers where it must be included are research papers. We therefore continue to consider papers where patients were not involved. The Patient and Public Involvement statement should provide a brief response to the following questions, tailored as appropriate for the study design reported (access examples of The Patient and Public Involvement statement):

• At what stage in the research process were patients/the public first involved in the research and how?
• How were the research question(s) and outcome measures developed and informed by their priorities, experience, and preferences?
• How were patients/the public involved in the design of this study?

• How were they involved in the recruitment to and conduct of the study?
• Were they asked to assess the burden of the intervention and time required to participate in the research?
• How were (or will) they be involved in your plans to disseminate the study results to participants and relevant wider patient communities (e.g. by choosing what information/results to share, when, and in what format)?

If patients were not involved please state this. In addition to considering the points above we advise authors to look at guidance for best reporting of patient and public involvement as set out in the GRIPP2 reporting checklist. If the Patient and Public Involvement statement  is missing in the submitted manuscript we will request that authors provide it.

The types of articles and maximum word counts are outlined below. Articles that do not conform to these specifications may be returned to the author for revision prior to peer review. Please contact the editorial office in advance of manuscript submission if you feel it is appropriate/valid for your article to exceed the specified maximum word count. Authors may find it useful to consult our pre-submission checklist.

Original research Systematic review Review Editorial Personal view Better way of working Letter Correspondence

This article type includes all research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc). In up to 3500 words (excluding text boxes, figures and references) these should provide a clear, up-to-date and evidence-based account of an important topic, with a critical analysis and conclusions. The article should appeal to international readers and those from a variety of relevant disciplines (e.g. primary care, sexual and reproductive health, genitourinary medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology, and possibly others such as infections disease or tropical medicine). Please consider seeking patient input into your article. We may send your manuscript for patient peer review or commission a patient commentary. The research type should be included in your title to make the nature of your study clear. Please include a structured abstract comprising no more than 250 words (additional to the words of the main body of the text) with headings appropriate to the content of your review. 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 topic – summarise the state of scientific knowledge on this subject before you did your study and why this study needed to be done
• What this study adds – summarise what we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before
• How this study might affect research, practice or policy – summarise the implications of this study
This will be published as a summary box after the abstract in the final published article.

Evidence-based writing: Throughout the article, please clarify the evidence on which key statements are based, and the strength of this evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion), for example: “A large randomised trial/a qualitative, focus group based study finds…”. Where evidence is lacking or is of poor quality please say so. Please avoid specialist jargon and abbreviations. Please make it clear if your advice is country specific. Presentation: Please use ‘reader-friendly’ subheadings. Two or three relevant illustrations (e.g. clinical photographs, line drawings and flow chart) should be provided where possible. Additional figures or other material may be published on the journal website in the form of online-only supplementary material. We need informed consent from patients for any material you obtain from patients even if they are not identifiable (including radiographs, histology slides, and so on). Additional material: Please include a box entitled ‘Additional educational resources’ detailing 2–6 key review articles, particularly Cochrane reviews where these exist, and useful URLs and websites. Please also consider including a box of up to 200 words containing a patient’s personal account. The patient may use his/her full name in the piece or can remain anonymous. We always need to see the patient’s signed consent prior to publication. Word count: up to 3500 words Illustrations/tables: maximum of 4 tables or figures (additional supplementary online-only data permitted) References: maximum of 50 references

We welcome comprehensive, evidence-based narrative reviews of the literature. Research reviews that systematically synthesise evidence (e.g. Systematic reviews, Meta-analysis, Scoping reviews, Mixed methods reviews, etc) are classified by the journal as Systematic reviews and must be submitted as such. In up to 3500 words (excluding text boxes, figures and references) these should provide a clear, up-to-date and evidence-based account of an important topic, with a critical analysis and conclusions. The article should appeal to international readers and those from a variety of relevant disciplines (e.g. primary care, sexual and reproductive health, genitourinary medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology, and possibly others such as infections disease or tropical medicine). Please consider seeking patient input into your article. We may send your manuscript for patient peer review or commission a patient commentary. The structured abstract should comprise of no more than 250 words (additional to the words of the main body of the text) with headings appropriate to the content of your review. 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 topic – summarise the state of scientific knowledge on this subject before you did your study and why this study needed to be done
    • What this study adds – summarise what we now know as a result of this study that we did not know before
    • How this study might affect research, practice or policy – summarise the implications of this study

This will be published as a summary box after the abstract in the final published article. The introduction should be about 100–150 words, and explain what the review is about, why it is important to which relevant specialties, and what it covers. It should specifically answer the question: “Why should I read this review?” In any methods section please outline what sources of information you used to prepare the review, and how you selected what to include. We do not expect you to perform a systematic review, but hope you will consult Cochrane and other systematic reviews. Please include a statement commenting on the overall quality of the supporting evidence.

Evidence-based writing: Throughout the article, please clarify the evidence on which key statements are based, and the strength of this evidence (published trials, systematic reviews, observational studies, expert opinion), for example: “A large randomised trial/a qualitative, focus group based study finds…”. Where evidence is lacking or is of poor quality please say so. Please avoid specialist jargon and abbreviations. Please make it clear if your advice is country specific. Presentation: Please use ‘reader-friendly’ subheadings. Two or three relevant illustrations (e.g. clinical photographs, line drawings and flow chart) should be provided where possible. Additional figures or other material may be published on the journal website in the form of online-only supplementary material. We need informed consent from patients for any material you obtain from patients even if they are not identifiable (including radiographs, histology slides, and so on). Additional material: Please include a box entitled ‘Additional educational resources’ detailing 2–6 key review articles, particularly Cochrane reviews where these exist, and useful URLs and websites. Please also consider including a box of up to 200 words containing a patient’s personal account. The patient may use his/her full name in the piece or can remain anonymous. We always need to see the patient’s signed consent prior to publication. Word count: up to 3500 words Illustrations/tables: maximum of 4 tables or figures (additional supplementary online-only data permitted) References: maximum of 50 references

Editorials should be based on high-quality evidence, with the sources of that evidence presented. Editorials are sometimes commissioned but we also welcome submissions on topics of importance in sexual and reproductive health care, whether of a clinical, public health or political nature. We welcome editorials from both UK and international authors, however they should be written with a worldwide readership in mind.

Word count: up to 800–1000 words (maximum) Illustrations/tables: maximum of 2 tables or figures References: maximum of 10 references

Personal views differ from editorials in that they provide authors with an opportunity to express their own personal views and opinions on a specific topic or theme, which may of course differ greatly from commonly held views and may thus be controversial.

Word count: up to 1000 words Illustrations/tables: maximum of 2 tables or figures References: maximum of 10 references

The journal publishes occasional “Better Way of Working” articles, whose aim is to disseminate service delivery suggestions likely to help readers improve practice. Contributions should be submitted in a ‘question and answer’ format addressing questions such as: Why was change needed? How did you go about implementing change? What advice would you give to others who might be considering a similar course of action? What outcome(s) resulted from the change in practice. Please include a text box containing key message points. This should comprise a maximum of three bullet points of no more than 25 words each, highlighting the main message(s) emerging from the article.

Word count: up to 1200 words Illustrations/tables: maximum of 2 tables or figures References: maximum of 10 references

Letters may include short research papers or contributions to a controversy or debate.

Word count: maximum of 600 words Illustrations/tables: 1 table or figure References: maximum of 5

Responses to articles published in BMJ SRH are welcomed and should be submitted online via the journal’s website. Contributors should go to the abstract or full text of the article in question and click on the ‘Responses’ tab. Responses relating to previously published items in the journal will be reviewed by the editor. They may be sent to the authors of the original article, who will be invited to reply. Responses are moderated but not peer reviewed; they do not receive a DOI and are not indexed. BMJ SRH publishes selected responses in journal issues, together with the author’s response where applicable. If a response is selected for publication in an issue, the contributor will be notified and asked to upload this to the journal’s submission system as Correspondence. Correspondence articles will receive a DOI and be indexed.

Word count: maximum of 600 words Illustrations/tables: none References: maximum of 10

BMJ is willing to consider publishing supplements to regular issues. Supplement proposals may be made at the request of:

• The journal editor, an editorial board member or a learned society may wish to organise a meeting, sponsorship may be sought and the proceedings published as a supplement.
• The journal editor, editorial board member or learned society may wish to commission a supplement on a particular theme or topic. Again, sponsorship may be sought.
• The BMJ itself may have proposals for supplements where sponsorship may be necessary.
• A sponsoring organisation, often a pharmaceutical company or a charitable foundation, that wishes to arrange a meeting, the proceedings of which will be published as a supplement.

For further information on criteria that must be fulfilled, download the supplement guidelines . In all cases, it is vital that the journal’s integrity, independence and academic reputation is not compromised in any way. When contacting us regarding a potential supplement, please include as much of the information below as possible.

• Journal in which you would like the supplement published
• Title of supplement and/or meeting on which it is based
• Date of meeting on which it is based
• Proposed table of contents with provisional article titles and proposed authors
• An indication of whether authors have agreed to participate
• Sponsor information including any relevant deadlines
• An indication of the expected length of each paper Guest Editor proposals if appropriate

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. iThenticate checks submissions against millions of published research papers, and billions of web content. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use iThenticate to screen their work before submission by visiting ithenticate.com.