Ethical issues

Authorship.  All of the entities specified as «authors» shall meet the requirements of this concept. The participation of each author in the work should be sufficient for taking over the responsibility for its content. Right to be called as the author is based on the following facts:

1) significant contribution to the conception and design of the study or to the analysis and interpretation of data;

2) text processingor making fundamental changes;

3) final approval of the version that is put in print.

 

Participation, that consists of financing or selection of material for the article, does not justify the inclusion in the group of authors. General management of the research team is also not recognized as sufficient for authorship.
Editors have the right to ask the author what is the contribution of each of them in writing an article; this information may be published.

All team members who do not meet criteria for authorship should be included with their consent in the “Acknowledgements”.
The order in which the authors are named  is determined by their joint decision .

 

Conflict of interests. Conflict of interests regarding a particular manuscript, occurs when one of the participants of the review process or publication — author, reviewer or editor — has obligations that could affect his or her opinion (even if it does not take place) . The most common cause of conflict of interests are the financial relationships (for example, related to employment, consultation, ownership of shares, payment of fees and paid expert opinion), direct or through close relatives. There are other reasons as well — personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual predilections.

 

Participants in the process of reviewing and publishing must report conflict of interests.
Authors when submitting the manuscript are responsible for the disclosure of their financial and other conflicts of interests that may affect their work. The manuscript should also contain all people and organizations that have provided financial support, as well as made other financial or personal involvement. Should be described the role of sponsor / sponsors in the structure of the study, collection, analysis and interpretation of data.

 

Authors should indicate the names of those who, in their opinion, must not be sent the manuscript for review in connection with the possible, as a rule, professional conflict of interests.

 

Reviewers must report to the editorial staff about all conflicts of interest that may affect their opinion about the manuscript, and they should abandon the review of a specific article if they consider it appropriate. In its turn, the editorial board should be able to assess the objectivity of the review and decide whether or not to refuse the services of this reviewer.
Editorial Board may use the information provided in reports about conflict of interest and about the financial interest as a framework for making editorial decisions.

 

Editors who make decisions about the manuscript should not have the personal, professional or financial interest / participation in any issue that they can decide. Other members of the editorial staff, if they participate in decision-making, must provide editors with the description of their financial interest (as it may have an influence on editorial decisions) and refuse to participate in decision making if conflict of interest takes place.

 

Compliance of patients’ rights and privacy. Patients have a right to privacy that can not be disclosed without their consent. Personally identifiable information including the names of patients, initials, numbers of hospitals and medical histories should not be published as written descriptions, photographs and genealogic trees unless the information is of great scientific value, or if the patient (or parent or guardian) will not provide a written consent to the publication. Authors should inform the patients if there is likelihood that the personally identifiable information will be available in the Internet after the publication. Authors should provide the editors office with written informed consent of the patient to the information dissemination and report it in the article.

 

Protection of people and animals in scientific research. If an article contains descriptions of experiments involving human / people, authors should indicate whether they are in accordance with the ethical standards of the committee responsible for experiments involving a man / people (which is part of the institution or it is national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 and its revised version of 2000. In case of doubt, authors should provide a justification of their approaches and evidence that Peer Review Board approved the doubtful aspects of the study. Wshen describing the experiments with animals authors should specify whether the requirements of national management and management of the institution for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals were  performed.

 

Publication of negative results. Many studies showing negative results are actually indecisive / inconclusive. The possibility of publication the inconclusive results of studies is considered by the editorial board in a special manner, because often these articles do not have the biomedical value ​​and the resources of the magazine are consumed.

Multiple publications. Editorial staff does not consider the manuscripts simultaneously submitted for publication in other magazines, as well as works which have already been published as articles or have become a part of another work presented or accepted for publication in any other print or electronic media. This policy does not exclude consideration of articles not accepted for publication by other magazines, or for a full description provided after the publication of the preliminary results, i.e. abstracts or poster messages presented at professional conferences.

Correspondence. If necessary, readers can send their comments, questions or critical feedback to published articles, which will be published in the magazine. If desired, the authors of the articles can answer the comments.

 

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Author’s copies are provided; upon the issue of a journal, to the responsible author at the e-mail address specified in an article, an electronic copy in pdf is sent by post. The magazine is also available by subscription.

The articles previously published or sent to another magazine or digest will not be accepted. The editors reserve the right to shorten and edit the articles.

Articles that do not comply with these requirements will not be considered. The manuscripts, the publication of which is denied, will not be returned.

The detailed description of items “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals” developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, in particular the ethical issues, can be found on our website (translated in 2006), the original version (in English, 2010) is at www.ICMJE.org.