About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal is the official publication of the South African Heart Association, the organisation representing the professional interests of all cardiologists and cardio-thoracic surgeons in South Africa. It is the objective of SA Heart to have the Journal recognized as a leading publication in the field of cardiovascular medicine - both in South Africa, as well as internationally.

The SA Heart Journal promotes the publication of original research and topical reviews in all disciplines related to cardiovascular medicine - including cardiology, cardiothoracic surgery and basic sciences. Case reports are considered for publication only if truly unique and contributing to improved patient care. Regular features include an ECG quiz, image in cardiology and local guidelines. Abstracts of the annual SA Heart Congress are also published. 

Peer Review Process

Publication in SAHeart is subject to peer review. The review process adheres to the principles of editorial independence, fair review by knowledgeable colleagues and ensuring the quality and integrity of the publication.

Manuscripts are assessed by the editor who then assigns them to the relevant section editors. The section editor then invites review by two external reviewers. If the topic falls within the editor or section editor's field of expertise, external review may be limited to one reviewer.

Reviewers are allowed a month for review. The report must state if the manuscript is worthy of publication and list revisions required. Following review the editor formulates an editorial response (reviewer comments included).

Revised manuscripts are assessed by the editor and returned to the reviewers or a decision regarding acceptance conveyed to the authors. Prior to publication authors are required to declare conflicts of interest, confirm that it has not been published elsewhere and assign copyright to SA Heart.

Publication Frequency

The Journal is published in English and appears as a quarterly publication, both in printed and electronic format.

Open Access Policy

SA Heart Journal is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, as underwritten by the license CC BY NC ND 4.0, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. See also our Copyright Notes.

Human and Animal Rights Policy

All studies submitted to SA Heart for publication must be in compliance with institutional and international regulations for human and animal studies such as the Helsinki declaration (2008) (http://www.wma.net /en/30 publications/10policies/b3/17c.pdf) and the South African MRC ethics guidelines (http://www.sahealthinfo.org/ethics/index.htm). Human studies require ethics committee approval and informed consent which must be documented in your manuscript. Animal studies require ethics committee approval and must conform to international guidelines for animal research, as well as the South African National Standard for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes. Compliance with these requirements must be documented in your manuscript.

Informed Consent Policy

All human studies submitted for publication in SA Heart require informed consent and ethics committee
approval. If waiver of consent was granted by the ethics committee in the case of retrospective studies no
impacting on patient confidentiality or patient rights, this must be clearly stated in the cover letter and
manuscript.

Conflict of Interest Policy

Authors publishing in SA Heart must declare all financial disclosures and conflicts of interest in the cover
letter and on the title page of manuscripts submitted for publication.

Author/Pages Fees

The SA Heart Journal request no Author fees or Pages Fees.  Article publications with this journal is for free.

Code of Conduct

Publication ethics and malpractice statement

1. Publication and authorship:

  • Authors must list all references used in/for the article
  • Authors must acknowledge financial support received and from which organization or firm
  • Authors acknowledge that the article/s is their own original work and that no other author's work has been used without referencing or in a manner which constitutes plagiarism.
  • Authors acknowledge that their data is real and verifiable and that no fraudulent data is used
  • Authors may not submit an article that has been published in another journal; nor may they submit to other journals when published in SAJHE. Articles must be published exclusively in SAJHE


2. Author's responsibilities:

  • Authors are obliged to participate in the review process and refusal to do so may result in articles not being published or retracted
  • Only people who contributed significantly to the research and/or article can be listed as 'author'. People who contributed in a lesser role must be acknowledged as 'contributor'
  • Authors must provide retractions or corrections of any mistakes found by the reviewers


3. Peer review / responsibility of reviewers:

  • Judgments will be objective
  • Reviewers should have no conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funders of the research
  • Reviewers should point out relevant published work which is not yet cited
  • Reviewers will treat reviewed articles as confidential


4. Editorial responsibilities:

  • The editor-in-chief has complete authority to reject or accept articles
  • Editors should have no conflict of interest with respect to articles they reject or accept
  • The editor/s will only accept a paper when reasonably certain that all conditions have been met by the author/s
  • The editor will promote the publication of corrections or retractions when errors are found in published work
  • The editor will preserve the anonymity of the reviewers


5. Publishing ethics issues

  • The editorial board will monitor and safeguard the publishing ethics of the journal
  • The guidelines for retracting articles are as follows:
    • Articles that are seriously flawed and unreliable will be retracted. Redundant articles (published in other journals prior to SAJHE) will be retracted. Change of authorship or minor errors will not lead to retraction but to the publishing of a correction notice.
    • Notices of retraction will clearly state the reason and the retracted article will be clearly marked in all electronic versions of the journal, and a retraction notice will be published in the print copy of the journal.
  • The journal will not compromise intellectual or ethical standards in favour of the business needs of the journal
  • The editorial board will maintain the integrity of the academic record of the journal
  • The editorial board will always be willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed.
  • No plagiarism and no fraudulent data will be tolerated in the journal

Digital Preservation

SA Heart Journal.  This journal is in the process of migrating from the Stellenbosch University preservation platform to the PKP PN (Preservation Network) platform.

ORCID iD

This journal programme cannot read the ORCID iD.  Please do not add it when you Register or when submitting a paper.

After Registration, can you Edit your Profile and then insert the ORCID iD, or please send your ORCiD ID, along with the name of the journal to, scholar@sun.ac.za to add to your Profile.

Stellenbosch University researchers/authors can create an ORCID iD here.

ORCID iD is a persistent, unique, numeric identifier for individual researchers and creators. It distinguishes you from researchers and creators with the same or similar names.  ORCID iD is similar to ResearcherID, Scopus Author ID, ISNI and other systems for identifying and distinguishing researchers and creators.