Overview

The journal issued by Global Publishing & Research Society adheres to the guidelines set out in the World Association of Medical Editors' (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion into Editorial Decisions, the Council of Science Editors' White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications, and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. It is committed to following and implementing the guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) at all stages of its review and publication processes.

When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, all of the individuals listed as contributors have reviewed and agreed to the content of the work being submitted and the submission complies with the journal's policies.

Ethics and Consent

The journal is determined to make sure that all the articles it publishes describe research which is ethically sound and complies with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki.

Ethics Approval

All research which involves human participants, human materials or human data must adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki and must obtain approval from an appropriate ethics committee. In all manuscripts that report such research, there must be included a statement to this effect, specifying the name of the ethics committee and, where applicable, the reference number. If a study is exempt from the need for ethics approval, this should also be explained in the manuscript, naming the ethics committee which has granted the exemption. Further information and documentation justifying this exemption should be made available to the Editor if requested. A manuscript may be rejected if the Editor considers that the research has not been carried out within an appropriate ethical framework. In special cases, the Editor may get in touch with the ethics committee for further information.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is a serious matter since it can damage the credibility of the research results. It is strongly advised that all authors check their manuscripts for plagiarism before sending them in to the journal. It is possible to detect plagiarism with the use of reliable plagiarism detection software. When the papers are submitted they will be checked for plagiarism using iThenticate and other plagiarism detection software, both at the time of submission and before publication. Should any case of plagiarism be found at any stage of the publication process, the manuscript will be rejected and the authors will be informed. Similarly, self-plagiarism is also considered and handled in the appropriate way.

When plagiarism is identified in a manuscript that has been submitted or in a paper which has already been published, COPE's code of conduct and flowcharts will be applied.

Privacy Statement

The information available on this journal website is intended only for the journal and will not be given to any outside parties.

Patient Consent and Confidentiality

Before an article includes any personal medical information about an identifiable living person, it must receive the patient's clear consent in order to be published. The patient has to sign the consent form, confirming that they have read the article; if the patient has not seen the final version of the manuscript that was submitted to our journal, then the form should state that they agree to the publication without having viewed the final version. The consent form is available in a number of languages, and the author is responsible for making sure that the form is in a language which the patient understands. After obtaining informed consent, it must be clearly shown in the published article.

If it is not possible to obtain consent because the patient cannot be traced, then publication can only take place if the information has been adequately anonymized. Adequate anonymization means that neither the patient nor any other person would be able to identify the patient according to our standards of anonymization. However, this could result in the loss of some information or evidence.

Images of Patients

Our policy regarding the acquisition of patients' written consent before publishing photographs or videos is included within our broader policy on patient confidentiality. We ask for the patient's written consent if there is any possibility that the patient could be identified from the photograph or any other image or from its caption or the accompanying text.

Human and Animal Rights

Any research that is submitted for publication in our journal must be based on an appropriate ethical framework. Should there be any concern that the research has not been carried out in accordance with an ethical framework, the Editors have the right to reject the manuscript and/or to get in touch with the authors' ethics committee. In some rare instances, if an Editor has serious ethical concerns regarding a study, the manuscript may still be rejected on ethical grounds even though approval from an ethics committee has been secured.

Any research that involves human subjects, human materials, or human data must be carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and must receive approval from an appropriate ethics committee. The study which is submitted must be supported by approval from an ethics or bioethics committee. When authors are reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting—for instance, as a technical advance or in the form of a case report—they must give a clear reason in the manuscript for considering the new procedure or tool to be more appropriate than standard clinical practice in order to meet the patient's clinical need. This kind of justification is not required if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors' institution. Authors must obtain approval from an ethics committee and must have secured informed patient consent in all cases where an experimental use is made of a new procedure or tool and it was not obvious before treatment that there would be a clear clinical advantage based on the patient's clinical need.

Retrospective ethics approval

Retrospective ethics approval is generally not possible if a study had not received prior approval from an ethics committee, and the manuscript may therefore not be considered for peer review. In these situations, the Editor has the discretion to decide whether or not to proceed with peer review.

Research Reporting Guidelines

It is advisable for authors to make use of the research reporting guidelines for the study type offered by the EQUATOR Network, as this will help to make sure that you include sufficient information so that editors, peer reviewers, and readers can understand how the research was carried out and can assess whether the findings are likely to be reliable.

The following are the essential reporting guidelines:

· Randomized controlled trials (RCTs): CONSORT guidelines

· Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA guidelines, MOOSE guidelines

· Observational studies in epidemiology: STROBE guidelines, MOOSE guidelines

· Diagnostic accuracy studies: STARD guidelines

· Quality improvement studies: SQUIRE guidelines

Consent for Publication

It is necessary to get written informed consent from the individuals involved, from their parents, or from their legal guardians if the people in question are under 18 whenever a manuscript includes personal details, images or videos. This consent must enable the details to be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, which the users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author as long as they cite the source.

Authors retain full ownership and control over commercial uses of their work. Any commercial use by others requires explicit permission from the copyright holder(s).

Dual Use Research of Concern

It is possible that certain manuscripts contain information which could be misused and thus present serious dangers to public health, safety, and security as well as to agricultural crops, plants, animals, or the environment. The benefits of publishing such information must be greater than any of the risks involved. We have the right to obtain advice from experts in cases where we think there may be concerns, and peer review might be needed in order to evaluate the dual-use risk. Publication can be refused if the potential risks of misuse exceed the benefits and the information might then be corrected, retracted, or taken down afterwards. Researchers are responsible for complying with the regulations of their institution, their funder, and their country as well as for dealing with dual-use issues such as biosecurity, nuclear matters, and chemical threats. Where appropriate, authors should describe their study as dual-use research of concern and should provide the authority that granted approval together with the reference number. Those manuscripts which involve harmful materials outside of a laboratory setting should specify the appropriate containment procedures.

We consider it important that openness in science should serve to warn society of possible threats and help in guarding against them; nevertheless, so long as the paper satisfies the criteria for publication we expect the risks involved in publishing it to be viewed as less than the benefits.

Trial Registration

As stated in the ICMJE guidelines, a clinical trial is defined as "any research project in which people or groups are prospectively assigned to an intervention, with or without the presence of concurrent comparison or control groups, in order to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome."

All clinical trials must be prospectively registered in a publicly accessible registry that is recognized by the ICMJE, for example in ClinicalTrials.gov or the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). The manuscript has to contain the details of the trial registration.

In order to ensure that the highest standards of quality are met, authors are required to give a detailed account of the statistical methods and measures that they have used, together with a reason for the selection of the particular statistical test. The reviewers will then examine whether the statistical methods are appropriate, and if they are not, the manuscript may be sent to a specialist for additional review. The editors too may get advice from a statistical expert in the relevant field.

Statistical Review

Authors must provide detailed descriptions of the statistical methods used, including justification for chosen tests. Reviewers and Editors may seek additional statistical review as necessary to ensure methodological rigor and reliability of results.