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• Call for Papers
• Author Guidelines [ PDF ]
• Authorship, Financial Disclosure, Copyright Transfer, and Acknowledgment Form [ PDF ]
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Reviewers

• Guidelines for Reviewers PDF
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Call for Papers

Papers are invited for Critical Care Nurse, a peer-reviewed journal. Critical Care Nurse publishes papers in all areas of high acuity, progressive, and critical care; however, the following topics have been identified by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses as critical care nurses' top 10 concerns (in alphabetical order):

Top 10 Concerns

• Deep venous thrombosis
  
• End-of-life/Palliative care
  
• Family-centered care, including family presence and open visitation
  
• Health care-associated infections
  
• Healthy work environments
  
• Multidrug-resistant organisms
  
• Pain and sedation management
  
• Patient safety
  
• Progressive mobility
  
• Wound care and pressure ulcer prevention
  

• New developments, advancements, or updates on nursing care, treatments, or procedures
  
• Cutting-edge medical or surgical therapies
  
• Evidence-based practice
  
• Exemplars of effective and successful nursing interventions
  
• Best practices for acute and critical care conditions
  
• Critical care pharmacology updates
  
• New diagnostic tests
  
• Advances in patient monitoring
  
• Case studies of patients with unique or unusual disorders or clinical situations
  
• Care of the critically ill obstetric and postpartum patient
  
• Providing critical care nursing services in nontraditional care sites such as ambulatory care, transport, and disaster settings
  
• Transitioning patients to home care
  
• Multidisciplinary collaboration in managing patient care
  
• Critical pathways, and patient care protocols for critical care

Academic education

• Critical care experiences in basic nursing education programs
  
• Preparing and supporting staff to serve as preceptors for students
  
• Instructional resources
  
• Resolving student placement problems
  
• Negotiating contracts with clinical facilities
  
• Computer- and Web-based instructional resources for students

Advanced practice

• Differential diagnosis of acute and critical care conditions
  
• Treatment practices for acute care conditions
  
• Collaboration of advanced practice nurses with staff nurses, clinical nurse specialists, nurse managers, medical staff, and allied health staff
  
• Acute care nurse practitioner issues, education, certification, and reimbursement
  
• Return of clinical nurse specialist

AIDS

• Advances in understanding and treating people with AIDS

Cardiovascular medicine

• Hemodynamic monitoring
  
• Advances in management of acute myocardial infarction
  
• Management of acute and chronic heart failure
  
• Use of vasoactive drips, inotropic support, thrombolytic therapy

Cardiovascular surgery

• Chest tubes and drains
  
• Managing complications
  
• Femoral sheaths
  
• Updates on new surgical procedures

Complementary therapies

• Spirituality in critical care nursing
  
• Creating a healing environment
  
• Efficacy of various complementary therapies in the critically ill

Cultural diversity

• Responding effectively to cultural aspects of patient and family care
  
• Minimizing language barriers
  
• Dealing with diversity issues among staff ECGs and pacemakers
  
• Advanced ECG interpretation
  
• Unique ECG cases
  
• Advanced pacemaker rhythms

Ethics

• End-of-life care
  
• Ethical and legal aspects of practice
  
• Resolving ethical conflicts effectively and expeditiously

Geriatrics

• Special needs and tailoring care for the elderly patient
  
• Restraint policies and procedures that meet JCAHO requirements
  
• Recognizing and managing elder abuse

Immunology

• Immunosuppression
  
• Advances in understanding immune system disorders
  
• Managing anaphylactic reactions and immunologic emergencies

Infection control

• Antibiotic-resistant organisms
  
• New therapies
  
• Unique case studies in infectious diseases

Management

• Case management and critical pathways for specific patient populations
  
• Staffing programs that work
  
• Mentoring programs
  
• Strategies for achieving magnet status
  
• Staffing: patient acuity/classification systems, floating, using registry staff, optimal staffing ratios and skill mix, staffing policies, work schedules and shifts
  
• Coping with mergers, redesigns, and downsizing
  
• Patient admission and discharge criteria
  
• Catheterization lab and radiology policies and procedures
  
• Guidelines for supervision and delegation; resolving problems with delegation
  
• Legal aspects of delegation, supervision, and assignment acceptance

Military critical care nursing

• Aspects of critical care nursing unique to any branch of the military
  
• Working with and developing clinical support staff such as corpsmen

Neonatal

• Unique needs of the neonate
  
• Managing neonatal emergencies
  
• Resources for neonatal nurses on specific patient populations
  
• Neonatal transport
  
• Supporting parents and siblings of neonates

Neurologic

• Sedation and pain management; sedation scales
  
• Neuro trauma
  
• New therapies for managing stroke
  
• Monitoring and managing intracranial pressure

Nutrition

• Enteral feeds and feeding tubes
  
• Nutritional issues in the critically ill
  
• Use of gastric pH

Pediatrics

• Unique needs of the pediatric critical care patient
  
• Managing pediatric emergencies
  
• Resources for pediatric critical care nurses
  
• Supporting parents and siblings of pediatric patients

Postanesthesia recovery

• Newer anesthetic agents
  
• Recovering critically ill patients from anesthesia
  
• Recognizing and managing postanesthesia recovery emergencies

Progressive care

• Policies, procedures, and protocols
  
• Competencies
  
• Telemetry best practices
  
• How it differs from critical care

Psychiatric issues

• Recognizing and managing psychiatric problems in the critically ill
  
• Managing the client with substance abuse
  
• Psychiatric complications in the critically ill
  
• Dealing with dysfunctional families

Pulmonary

• Advances in patient care
  
• Managing patients on various forms of mechanical ventilation
  
• Ventilator-associated pneumonia

Staff development

• Assessing and developing staff competency; competency measurement and validation tools
  
• Effective and efficient orientation programs
  
• Patient and family education programs
  
• Orientation and continuing education programs for unlicensed personnel
  
• Preceptor training and support

Toxicology

• Pathophysiology of toxic ingestions
  
• Protocols and algorithms for managing toxic ingestion
  
• Case studies of unique toxicology cases

Transplantation

• Advances in organ and tissue transplantation
  
• New pharmacologic therapies for the transplant patient

Trauma

• Multisystem trauma
  
• Neuro trauma
  
• Emergency care of the trauma patient
  
• Interfacility transport
  

Author Guidelines for Critical Care Nurse [ PDF ]

CRITICAL CARE NURSE is an official publication of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN). Authors are invited to submit manuscripts for consideration and peer review. Clinical topics must apply directly to the care of critically and acutely ill patients and/or progressive care, telemetry, and stepdown unit patients and their families, with case presentations and clinical tips especially welcome.

Manuscripts should be submitted online via the CCN online manuscript submission and review system at www.editorialmanager.com/ccn. At the time of submission, complete contact information (postal/mail address, e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers) for the corresponding author is required. First and last names, e-mail addresses, and institutional affiliations of all coauthors also are required. (Print copies of the journal will be sent only to coauthors who provide their physical address.) Manuscripts submitted through the online system should not be submitted by mail or e-mail.

Quality improvement studies help maximize the integrity and safety of critical care. CCN welcomes such articles. However, because of their necessarily subjective relationships to context and social processes, such articles are difficult to evaluate using traditional empirical standards. For this reason, CCN asks that quality improvement studies adhere to the Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) Guidelines. For more information, please go to http://qshc.bmj.com/content/vol17/Suppl_1 or doi: 10.1136/qshc.2008.029058.

Editorial Office Contact Information
Peer Review Coordinator: telephone, (949) 448-7341 or (800) 394-5995, ext 241; fax, (949) 448-5542; e-mail, ccn.editorialoffice@aacn.org

For help submitting your manuscript online, visit www.editorialmanager.com/ccn and click "Author Tutorial." For technical help or questions not addressed by the Author Tutorial document, e-mail ccnhelp@aacn.org

CCN cannot accept responsibility for lost of mislaid materials; please keep a copy for your files. All manuscripts are subject to peer review. Accepted manuscripts become the property of AACN and may not be published without the written permission of AACN. Accepted manuscripts are subject to editing to conform to the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th edition (2007). Authors will be asked to review galley proofs and PDFs of page proofs before publication.

Cover Letter
Please include a cover letter with the name, address, telephone numbers (home and work), fax number, and e-mail address of the author to whom all correspondence should be addressed.

Authorship, Financial Disclosure, Copyright Transfer, and Acknowledgment Form
After the manuscript is submitted online, the corresponding author will receive a manuscript number. Each author should complete an Authorship, Financial Disclosure, Copyright Transfer, and Acknowledgment Form and submit the completed form (including address) by e-mail as a PDF attachment. Be sure to fill in the manuscript number and the title of your manuscript in the space provided on the form. All financial disclosures, including disclosures of no financial conflicts, will be published. [ PDF ]

Manuscript Content
Title Page
The title page of a manuscript should contain the following:

• Title of manuscript, which should be to the point and reflect the substance of the manuscript
• Authors' full names, with degrees, credentials, and institutional affiliations, as well as work and/or home addresses
• Three to 5 key words for indexing

Key Points
A summary of Key Points should be submitted on a separate sheet and should summarize, in a few sentences, the critical information the author intends for the reader to take away from the article.

Articles
Feature articles are papers devoted to the mainstays of clinical practice and of interest to nearly all readers. Columns are shorter papers devoted to clinical subspecialty areas (eg, pediatrics, neonatal, transplantation) or functional areas (eg, ethics, legal, staff development). Articles should generally not exceed 15 double-spaced typed pages, excluding references, tables, and figures. Use of such visual elements as tables and figures, as well as sidebars and bibliography to convey additional information, is strongly encouraged; these elements should augment, not duplicate, information in the text.

• Submit the paper without any information that may identify the author(s).
• Add Line Numbers, a function in Microsoft Word, to each page. The line numbering is not visible in Normal view, but can be seen in Print Preview or Print Layout views.

Key Points
Summary of Key Points should be submitted on a separate sheet and should summarize, in a few sentences, the critical information the author intends for the reader to take away from the article.

References
References should be double-spaced and should be located after the last page of text and before any Tables and Figures. Number them consecutively by their order of appearance in the text and designate reference numbers as superscripts in the text. References cited in tables and figures are numbered sequentially as if they are cited where the table and figure is first cited in the text. Do not use any word processing footnote function. If a source lists more than 6 authors, list only the first 3, followed by "et al." Follow the American Medical Association Manual of Style, 10th edition, for format and punctuation, shown below.

• For Journals: Last name and initials (no periods) of authors, title of article (capitalize only the first word, proper names, and abbreviations normally capitalized; no quotation marks), journal title (italicize and use Index Medicus abbreviations), year of publication, volume, issue, inclusive page numbers. Example:
  1. Reed FD, Watson NP. Nursing care of the patient withcardiomyopathy. Am J Nurs. 1985;4:121-124.

• For Books: Last name and initials of authors; title of book (italicize and capitalize all significant words); edition number (if after first edition); last name and initials of editor if any; city and state of publication; publisher; year of publication; page numbers (only if specifically cited). Example:
  2. Carlson AK. Critical Care Nursing Process. 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Hill Press; 1985:245-252.

• For Book Chapters: Last name and initials of authors; title of chapter; "In:" followed by last name and initials of editors, "ed."; title of book, etc, as above. Example:
  3. Schiffman JD. Immunology of influenza. In: Cane MB, ed. Viruses and Influenza. Orlando, FL: Academic Press; 1990:191-196.

• For Online References: Author(s), if given; title of the specific item cited (if none is given, use the name of the organization responsible for the site); name of the Web site; full URL; published (date); date the Web site was accessed. Example:
  International Society for Infectious Diseases. ProMED-mail Web site. http://promedmail.org. Accessed April 29, 2006.

Bibliography
Unnumbered references, in the form of a selected reading list, are rarely used in AMA journals. If they are, these references would appear alphabetically in a list separate from the specifically cited reference list.

Tables
Submit each table as a separate text file. Each table must be numbered (consecutively in the order mentioned in the text) and titled. Each column within a table should have a heading. Abbreviations must be explained in a footnote.

Figures
Submit scanned black-and-white or color images at a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Do not send files downloaded from the Internet, as these are low-resolution and will reproduce poorly in print. The preferred file formats are TIFF and EPS. JPG and BMP are accepted but not preferred, as these are also low resolution. Do not submit any art in Microsoft applications. For printing purposes, the original art that was placed into these applications is required. Include signed consent/release from owner of photo or artist if different from author. Include signed consent/release forms from all identifiable individuals. If permission from subjects is not obtained, photographs will be cropped appropriately. For figures such as graphs, data points should be provided in a separate text file. Figure legends should be typed double-spaced in consecutive order on a new manuscript page. Contact the editorial office for further information (800-394-5995, ext 241, or ccnhelp@aacn.org).

Permissions
If any material in the manuscript is from a previously copyrighted publication, include a letter of permission to reproduce the material from both the author and the copyright holder.

Patient Descriptions, Photographs, and Pedigrees
Include a signed statement of informed consent to publish (in print and online) patient descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees from all persons (parents or legal guardians for minors) who can be identified in such written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees. Such persons should be shown the manuscript before its submission.

Drug Names
Use generic names only. The trade name of a particular drug may be cited in parentheses the first time the generic name appears.

Units of Measurement
Physiologic measurements should be reported in metric units (International System of Units, SI); conventional units may be placed in parenthesis after the SI units. Use metric units or decimal multiples for length, height, weight, and volume. Show temperature in degrees Celsius, blood pressure in millimeters of mercury, and volume (liquid and gas) in milliliters, not cubic centimeters. Laboratory values may be reported in conventional units.

Abbreviations and Symbols
Avoid nonstandard abbreviations and those included in The Joint Commission's "Do Not Use" list of abbreviations (available at http://www.jointcommission.org/PatientSafety/DoNotUseList). Use the full term for an abbreviation or symbol on first reference, unless it is a standard unit of measure.

Manuscript Preparation
All material must be double-spaced with margins of at least 1 inch on all sides. Number all pages sequentially, including the summary of key points, references, tables, and figures.

Checklist for Authors
Manuscripts should be submitted online via the CCN online manuscript submission and review system at http://www.editorialmanager.com/ccn. Editorial Manager will combine your submission into a single PDF file for purposes of review. Your online manuscript submission should contain the following components:
Cover letter (include name, home and work addresses, home and work telephone numbers, fax number, and e-mail address of corresponding author)
Authorship, Financial Disclosure, Copyright Transfer, and Acknowledgment Form—each author signs a separate form
Brief (1 to 2 sentences) biography of each author
Title page (include title of manuscript; name(s), professional credentials, institutional or academic affiliation(s), city and state of all authors in the order intended for publication; and 3 to 5 key words for indexing)
Text of manuscript
Summary of Key Points (include as numbered page; double-spaced on separate page)
References (include as numbered pages; double-spaced on separate page; follow reference style described in these guidelines)
Acknowledgments, disclaimers, sources of financial support (double-spaced)
Tables (double-spaced, 1 per page; numbered consecutively; include title for each)
Figure legends (separate page; double-spaced)
Illustrations (1 per page; number and label on back)
Permissions to publish identifiable persons in photographs and names of people in the Acknowledgments, copyrighted materials, and any material not belonging to author

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Critical Care Nurse
Authorship, Financial Disclosure, Copyright Transfer, and Acknowledgment Form
[ PDF ]

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