Organization

Role in Publication Ethics

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Provides guidance on publication ethics, misconduct management, retractions, and editorial best practices.

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)

Establishes recommendations for manuscript preparation, authorship, conflicts of interest, and reporting standards.

World Association of Medical Editors (WAME)

Promotes editorial independence, ethical publishing practices, and high standards in medical journal publishing.

Ethical Principle

Requirements and Responsibilities

Editors’ responsibility

Ensure fair, unbiased, and timely peer review. Evaluate manuscripts based on academic merit only. Maintain confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest, and address suspected misconduct.

Reviewers’ responsibility

Provide objective and constructive reviews. Maintain confidentiality, avoid using unpublished information, identify uncited relevant work, report ethical concerns, and decline reviews when unqualified.

Authors’ responsibility

Authors are accountable for the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of their work, including data collection, analysis, and reporting. They must promptly address and correct any concerns regarding their published work.

Authorship Requirements

All authors and co-authors must meet recognized authorship criteria and receive appropriate credit. Authors should clearly describe their individual contributions to the manuscript.

Originality and Plagiarism

Submitted manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under consideration elsewhere. Any use of others’ work, ideas, or words must be properly cited or quoted.

Data Availability and Citation

Authors may be required to provide raw research data for editorial review and should be prepared to make data publicly available when appropriate. Data sources must be properly cited in the reference list.

Acknowledgment of Sources

All contributions, assistance, funding sources, and relevant works of others must be appropriately acknowledged in the manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure

Authors must disclose any financial, personal, institutional, or professional relationships that could influence or appear to influence the research or its interpretation.

Reporting Standards

Research reports must provide an accurate, transparent, and objective description of methods, findings, and significance, without fabrication, falsification, or misleading statements.

Human Subject Protection

Studies involving human participants must include a statement confirming compliance with ethical standards and applicable regulations.

Animal Welfare Compliance

Research involving animals must adhere to institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals, with appropriate ethical statements included.

Research Ethics Approval

Research studies must obtain approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent ethics committee. Clinical trials should be registered according to national and international requirements.

Publishing Ethics Standards

The journal follows international best-practice guidelines established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) to ensure ethical, transparent, and responsible scientific publishing.

Ethical misconduct

Includes plagiarism, data fabrication/falsification, duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship, and citation manipulation. Actions may include manuscript rejection, article retraction, and institutional notification.

Correction and retraction

Significant post-publication errors or ethical issues may lead to corrections or retractions. Retraction notices are clearly marked and publicly available.