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Vancouver Referencing — Medicine & Health Sciences Guide

Numbered superscript citations, MEDLINE journal abbreviations, ICMJE reference list format, and worked examples for clinical papers, systematic reviews, and health policy documents.

📖 15 min read🎓 Medicine, Nursing & Health🗓 Updated 2025

Contents

  1. Overview
  2. In-Text Citations
  3. Reference List Rules
  4. Journal Abbreviations
  5. Journal Articles
  6. Books & Chapters
  7. Online Sources
  8. Reports & Guidelines
  9. Common Errors

Overview

Vancouver style — formally the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) referencing system — is the standard citation format for medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, pharmacy, and most health sciences. It is also known as the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals."

Unlike author-date systems (Harvard, APA), Vancouver uses sequential numbers. Each source is assigned a number the first time it is cited; that number is used every time the source is cited again. The numbered reference list at the end of the paper is arranged in citation order, not alphabetically.

In-Text Citations

In-text citations in Vancouver are superscript numbers placed immediately after the point of citation, before or after punctuation depending on house style. Most UK health schools use superscripts placed after punctuation.

Hypertension affects approximately one billion people worldwide and remains the leading modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease.1 Recent systematic reviews have confirmed that aerobic exercise interventions reduce systolic blood pressure by a clinically significant margin.2,3 Where multiple interventions were compared, structured resistance training showed comparable effects in older adults.4
1. Reference for hypertension prevalence
2. First systematic review
3. Second systematic review
4. Resistance training reference

Rules for numbering

Reference List Rules

Journal Name Abbreviations

Vancouver requires abbreviated journal titles as listed in MEDLINE. The full journal name is never written out in the reference list.

Full Journal NameMEDLINE Abbreviation
The LancetLancet
The New England Journal of MedicineN Engl J Med
The British Medical JournalBMJ
Journal of the American Medical AssociationJAMA
Annals of Internal MedicineAnn Intern Med
Journal of Nursing EducationJ Nurs Educ
Cochrane Database of Systematic ReviewsCochrane Database Syst Rev
Find journal abbreviations

Search the NLM Catalog (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog) to find the official MEDLINE abbreviation for any journal. Your institution's library guide will also list commonly used abbreviations in your field.

Journal Articles

Standard Journal Article (≤6 authors)
1. Rose G, Marmot MG. Social class and coronary heart disease. Br Heart J. 1981;45(1):13–19.
Journal Article (7+ authors → et al.)
2. Yusuf S, Hawken S, Ôunpuu S, Dans T, Avezum A, Lanas F, et al. Effect of potentially modifiable risk factors associated with myocardial infarction in 52 countries (the INTERHEART study): case-control study. Lancet. 2004;364(9438):937–52.
Journal Article with DOI
3. Ioannidis JP. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005;2(8):e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.
Systematic Review / Cochrane
4. Hartley L, Flowers N, Holmes J, Clarke A, Stranges S, Hooper L, et al. Green and black tea for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2013;(6):CD009934. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD009934.pub2.

Books and Chapters

Book
5. Kumar P, Clark M, editors. Kumar and Clark's Clinical Medicine. 10th ed. Elsevier; 2020.
Chapter in Edited Book
6. Longmore M. Cardiovascular disease. In: Longmore M, Wilkinson IB, Baldwin A, Wallin E, editors. Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine. 9th ed. Oxford University Press; 2014. p. 86–183.

Online Sources

Webpage
7. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Hypertension in adults: diagnosis and management [Internet]. London: NICE; 2019 [updated 2023; cited 2025 Jan 14]. Available from: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng136.

Reports and Guidelines

WHO Report
8. World Health Organization. Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases 2014. Geneva: WHO; 2014. Report No.: WHO/NMH/NVI/15.1.

Common Vancouver Errors

ErrorCorrect approach
Alphabetical reference listVancouver reference list is in citation order (1, 2, 3…)
Using author names in textIn-text citations are numbers only: "…cardiovascular risk.1"
Full journal namesUse MEDLINE abbreviations: N Engl J Med not New England Journal
New number for repeat citationReuse the original number each time — no new numbers
Periods after initials: Smith J.K.No periods: Smith JK
7+ authors listed in fullList first 6 then et al.
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