By submitting an abstract you are agreeing to the following terms and conditions.

Abstracts, presentations or presenters that do not comply with the following terms and conditions may be rejected or removed from the programme at any time, subject to the decision of the Forum Scientific Planning Committee.

Presenter Eligibility

Representatives of the following are not eligible to present:

1. Representatives of health care/pharmaceutical industry (HPI) commercial interests (for-profit entities that develop, produce, market, resell, or distribute drugs, devices, products, or other health care goods, services, or therapies that may be prescribed to patients or ordered by doctors in the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, management, or palliation of health conditions)
2. Sponsors cannot be presenters.

Abstract Eligibility

1. Abstracts that are of national and international interest.
2. Abstracts that include:
   • completed research,
   • research in progress,
   • emerging research,
   • research studies, and
   • program/intervention evaluation.

Abstracts previously presented at a CIMVHR Forum will not be accepted.

Abstract Requirements and Guidelines

1. A maximum of two abstract submissions per individual will be accepted (authors may be a co-author on additional abstract submissions).
2. Abstracts must be submitted online no later than 12PM ET, April 12th. Amendments to abstracts are not possible thereafter.
3. Abstracts must be submitted using the presenting author’s profile and follow the online submission process. Abstracts that are not submitted using the presenting author’s profile will not be accepted.
4. Authors who wish to submit an abstract will be required to complete a conflict of interest form prior to submission.
5. Authors who wish to submit an abstract will be required to provide learning objectives relating to their abstract/presentation.
6. Authors must ensure that they have permission to use all graphics that appear in their presentation(s). By presenting at Forum, CIMVHR expects authors to have obtained lawful copyrights of all sourced material.
7. Abstracts involving human research must have received ethics clearance from their respective university and/or the Social Science Research Review Board (SSRRB) if applicable: https://bit.ly/352ZoVY.
8. Abstracts involving animal research must follow the guidelines and/or certification of the National and International Three Rs Centres: https://ccac.ca/en/three-rs-and-ethics/national-and-international-three-rs-centres.html.
9. In order to maximize research impact, CIMVHR is encouraging, wherever possible, that researchers adopt the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) principles in their methodologies.
10. Abstracts submitted must be original work.
11. Abstracts submitted must be approved by all authors.

Abstract Formatting

1. Abstracts must be no more than 400 words.
2. Authors who wish to submit a research study abstract must follow the format: introduction, methods, results and conclusion.
3. Authors who wish to submit a program/intervention evaluation abstract must follow the format: program/intervention description, evaluation methodology, results and conclusion.
4. All other abstracts will follow the format: brief description, patient population, results and conclusion.

Account Delegation

By assigning an account delegate to your CIMVHR profile, you are allowing your delegate to

1. prepare and submit current year abstracts on your behalf, and
2. update and/or amend any or all the current year’s abstract submissions.

Review of Online Submission

The CIMVHR Forum Scientific Planning Committee will not accept abstract submissions that do not comply with submission guidelines and requirements, are poorly written, or unclear.

Evaluation by the CIMVHR College of Peer Reviewers

All abstracts are double blind reviewed by members of the CIMVHR College of Peer Reviewers

Research study abstracts will be assessed on the following criteria:

1. Relevance of topic chosen.
2. Relevance of topic to military, Veteran or other related populations and their families.
3. Round conceptual foundation.
4. Appropriate study design including (where applicable) recruitment; sampling; data collection; outcome measures; and theoretical basis.
5. Appropriate analysis with consideration of factors such as
   • application of qualitative methodology;
   • controls for bias, chance and confounding;
   • use of causality criteria;
   • quality and quantity of evidence;
   • assessment of strength of evidence and certainty of conclusions;
   • derivation of findings from data and conclusions from findings; and
   • criteria for evaluating humanities studies.
6. Expected to be of national interest

Program/intervention evaluation abstracts will be assessed on the following criteria:

1. relevance of the program/intervention topic chosen;
2. relevance of the program/intervention to military, Veteran or other related populations and their families;
3. round conceptual foundation;
4. appropriate description of the program/intervention; and
5. appropriate evaluation methodology and analysis with consideration of factors such as evidence for need, efficacy, safety, sustainability of outcomes, fidelity, reproducibility/replication, cultural relevance, staffing, availability/reach, barriers/facilitators, impact and cost assessment.; and
6. Expected to be of national interest.

You may choose from the following for presentation, however, the College of Peer Reviewers and/or the Forum Scientific Planning Committee will make the final decision.

• a poster ,
• a podium; or,
• a symposium (A symposium must be 3 to 6 presenters including the discussant).

Invitations, Acceptance and Registration

1. Invitations to present will be sent out via email by the end of June.
2. Any author presenting at Forum must be a registered delegate.
3. Acceptance to present an abstract must be provided to the CIMVHR Forum Planning Team before by July 12th at which time all presenters must be registered.
4. If your presentation is accepted, you will be responsible for your own travel, accommodation, and registration for Forum.

Accepted Presentations

1. Only one author named on the abstract is permitted to present. Under exceptional circumstances, a request for a second presenter may be granted. The request will be brought to the Forum Scientific Planning Committee for consideration. Please provide written justification via email as to why a second presenter is required prior to April 12th.
2. The presenting author must be a named author of the submitted abstract.
3. Should any unnamed/unauthorized person or persons take the podium/poster during the presentation, the presentation may be interrupted, and that person may be asked to leave the podium/poster session.
4. Authors who make a presentation that is different from the abstract that was accepted for presentation will be sanctioned or expelled from Forum for a period of five years henceforth.
5. All presentations poster (digital file) and/or podium (slides) must be received by the Forum Planning Committee no later than September 13th.
6. The presenting author is responsible for preparing adequate copies of any handouts they wish to provide for attendees of their session.
7. Podium presentations must not exceed 15 minutes; each presenter will be allocated a 5-minute question period.
8. Should the podium presentation include presentation slides, a maximum of 12 content slides is recommended.
9. Presentations must include all conflict of interest slides as provided by CIMVHR/The College of Family Physicians of Canada/The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
10. Presenters must be available to present at any time during the duration of Forum.
11. The presenting author will immediately notify michelle.daigle@queensu.ca if they are unable to present, if the presenting author has changed, or if there are any changes to the order of their presentations (symposium). Requests for amendments to presentations made after September 1st will not be reflected in the Forum Programme.

Publications, Postings and Permissions

1. By accepting the invitation to present, the presenting author implies permission for their name, designation, affiliation, city and country to be printed in the Forum Programme, which is posted on both CIMVHR and CIMVHR Forum websites. Hardcopies will be provided onsite.
2. By accepting the invitation to present, the authors imply permission for their abstracts to be posted in the online Abstract Supplement. It is the presenting author’s responsibility to obtain permissions from all authors.

Disclosure of Potential Conflict of Interest

1. All planning committee members’ and presenters’ financial or in-kind relationships (not only those relevant to the subject being discussed) encompassing the previous two years, up to and including the current presentation, must be declared and disclosed.
2. It is the presenters’ responsibility to ensure that their presentations (and any recommendations) are balanced and reflect the current scientific literature. Unapproved or off label use of products or services must be declared within the presentation.
3. Disclosure must be done verbally and displayed in writing at the beginning of a presentation.
4. False disclosure or failure to disclose conflict of interest as outlined above may result in the Forum Planning Team removing or replacing the presenter.

Industry/Commercially Sponsored Research

The CIMVHR Forum Scientific Committee applies for Forum to be a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accredited program. Therefore, the following guidelines of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada must be observed:

1. Representatives of commercial organizations—including, but not limited to, pharmaceutical, device, and biotechnology companies—may not act as educators or presenters unless they are providing a product or device demonstration, and only when such a demonstration cannot be provided by a physician or other health care provider with no affiliation to a commercial organization.
2. Representatives of a commercial interest (e.g., pharmaceutical company, medical device company, etc.) cannot assume the role of a facilitator, speaker, and/or instructor for any Mainpro+ certified program. The only exception is where a demonstration of a product or device is considered to be an essential component of the educational event, and no physician or other health care professional is qualified to perform this role. This type of participation must be rationalized by event planning committee members and outlined in the initial certification application and be in no way related to product or device promotion or sales.
3. Industry (pharmaceutical/biotechnology company) representatives may attend live certified CPD programs as non-contributing members to the discussion to provide logistics support such as facilitating registration, audiovisual set-up, seating, and distribution of certificates of attendance.
4. Industry representatives may attend a live certified program only with the consent of the planning committee chair and only if seating remains, preferably at the back of the room, and must wear no commercial identifiers (e.g., corporate logos).
5. Industry presentations may be considered for inclusion into pre-Forum activities.

Awards

CIMVHR Forum presents a variety of awards, to recognize a researcher or research teams who have made significant contributions to military, Veteran or other related populations and their families. All eligible abstracts are placed into the possible award categories when received, and then shortlisted by the awards coordinator. Authors of eligible abstracts will be contacted by the awards coordinator.

Award winners are chosen by a panel of judges who are responsible for attending each presentation and rating the presentation based on pre-selected criteria for each award. A current list of awards may be located on the CIMVHR Forum website and may vary from year to year.

Anti-harassment policy

CIMVHR Forum provides a harassment-free conference experience for everyone. Conference participants acting in a harassing way to organizers or other attendees may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the Forum Planning Team:
https://www.queensu.ca/secretariat/policies/senate/harassmentdiscrimination-complaint-policy-and-procedure.

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I hereby confirm that I have read, fully understand and agree to all clauses within the Terms and Conditions. I am aware that failure to abide by the Terms and Conditions could lead to the removal of my presentation(s) from Forum.