About the repository

The FNPH Calabar Research Repository is the open archive of research produced at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar and by researchers who work with the hospital. It holds journal articles, theses, reports, conference papers and secondary datasets across psychiatry, clinical psychology, nursing, social work, pharmacy, occupational therapy, laboratory science, health administration and health systems research.

The repository is managed by the Research Unit. Every item is screened by the Research Unit and reviewed under the oversight of the Research Review and Ethics Committee before it is published. Published items receive a permanent identifier (for example FNPHC-2026-0001) that can be cited.

The repository also publishes the Journal of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar, the hospital's peer-reviewed journal.

Guidance for authors

Who can submit

Staff, residents, students on placement and external researchers whose work involves the hospital, its patients, records or staff. Create a free account, then use Submit.

What to prepare

The manuscript in Word or PDF format, with the abstract, keywords and full author list.
The ethics approval reference from the Research Review and Ethics Committee, or from the committee that approved the study.
The approval letter as a PDF, if the Research Unit does not already hold it.
Funding details and a statement on competing interests.
For datasets: the data file, a codebook that explains each variable, and a description of how the data were de-identified.

Accepted file types

Documents: PDF, DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF and TXT. Data: CSV, TSV, XLS, XLSX, ODS, SPSS (SAV), Stata (DTA), SAS, R (RDS, RData), JSON and XML. Several files can be combined in a ZIP archive. The largest file accepted is 50 MB.

Work already published elsewhere

Papers already published in other journals can be added so that the hospital's research output is in one place. Give the DOI or the publisher's link. Upload the full text only when the publisher's licence allows it; otherwise the repository shows the details and links to the publisher.

After you submit

You can follow each stage of the process from your workspace. If the reviewers ask for changes, you upload a revised version with a response to their comments. You receive a decision by email when the review is complete.

Ethics and peer review

Research involving patients, their records, staff or hospital data must have ethics approval. The Research Unit checks every submission for:

a valid ethics approval reference;
consent, or the committee's approval to use records without consent;
the removal of names, hospital numbers, addresses, photographs and other details that could identify a person;
fit with the scope of the repository.

Work that passes screening is sent to at least 2 independent reviewers. Review is blind: reviewers do not see the authors' names, and authors never see the reviewers' names. The editors make the final decision on the basis of the reviews: accept, revise or decline.

Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and keep the work confidential.

Data access policy

The repository shares secondary data so that other researchers can reuse it, while protecting the people the data describe. Some categories of information are never collected or released, in line with the Research Unit's confidentiality rules.

Access levels

Open access	Anyone can download the files.
Registered users	Sign in with a free account to download.
On request	Request access; the Research Unit reviews each request.

Requests

For datasets marked On request, sign in, open the dataset and choose Request access. Describe the purpose of your research and accept the data use conditions. The Research Unit reviews each request, usually within ten working days. Once a request is approved, the download buttons are unlocked for your account.

Conditions of use

Use the data only for the approved purpose.
Do not try to identify any person, or link the data with other sources to do so.
Keep the data secure and within your research team.
Cite the dataset in all outputs and send a copy of publications to the Research Unit.
Delete the data when the project ends.

Copyright and licences

Authors keep the copyright of their work. Each item shows the licence under which it is shared. Most items use Creative Commons licences:

Citing items

Every item page has a How to cite box with the reference in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver and AMA styles, and files for EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley (RIS) and LaTeX (BibTeX). Please cite the permanent identifier or DOI, and check the reference against the style rules of the journal you are writing for.

Contact

Research Unit, Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar.
Email: research@fnphcalabar.gov.ng