Publication Ethics

Overview

The journal published by WASR Publication follows the guidelines established by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) Policy Statement on Geopolitical Intrusion on 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. The journal is dedicated to following and applying the guidelines and flowcharts of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) during its review and publication processes.

Submitting a manuscript to the journal means that all authors listed as contributors have reviewed and agreed to the content of the submitted work and that the submission meets the journal's policies.

Ethics and Consent 

The journal is committed to ensuring that all published articles report work that is ethically sound and follows the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki.

Ethics Approval 

Any research involving human participants, human materials, or human data must comply with the Declaration of Helsinki and must receive approval from an appropriate ethics committee. A statement indicating this, including the name of the ethics committee and the reference number if applicable, must be included in all manuscripts reporting such research. If a study is exempt from requiring ethics approval, this should also be explained in the manuscript, including the name of the ethics committee that granted the exemption. Additional information and documentation to support this exemption should be available to the Editor upon request. Manuscripts may be rejected if the Editor determines that the research was not conducted within an appropriate ethical framework. In exceptional cases, the Editor may contact the ethics committee for more information.

Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is a serious issue that can undermine the credibility of research findings. All authors are strongly recommended to check their manuscripts for plagiarism before submission to the journal. Plagiarism can be detected using reliable plagiarism checking software. All submitted papers will be checked for plagiarism using iThenticate and other plagiarism detection software upon submission and before publication. If any instance of plagiarism is detected at any stage of the publication process, the manuscript will be rejected, and the authors will be notified. Self-plagiarism is also taken into account and managed accordingly.

COPE’s code of conduct and flowcharts will be used if plagiarism is detected in a submitted manuscript or found in a published paper.

Privacy Statement 

The information provided on this journal site is solely for the purpose of the journal and will not be shared with any external parties.

Patient Consent and Confidentiality 

An article containing personal medical information about an identifiable living individual must have the patient's explicit consent before publication. The patient must sign the consent form, stating that they have read the article. If the patient has not seen the final version of the manuscript submitted to our journal, the form must reflect that they approved publication without viewing the final version. The consent form is available in multiple languages, and the author must ensure that the form is in a language the patient understands. Once informed consent is obtained, it will be clearly indicated in the published article.

If obtaining consent is not possible due to the patient being untraceable, publication can only occur if the information is sufficiently anonymized. Anonymization means that neither the patient nor anyone else could identify the patient based on our standard of anonymization. However, this may lead to a loss of information or evidence.

Images of Patients 

Our policy on obtaining consent for publishing pictures or videos of patients is part of our general policy on patient confidentiality. If there is any chance that a patient might be identified from a photograph or any other image, or from its caption or accompanying text, we require the patient's written consent for publication.

Human and Animal Rights 

All research conducted for publication in our journal must follow an appropriate ethical framework. If there are concerns that the work has not been conducted within an ethical framework, the Editors may reject the manuscript and/or contact the authors’ ethics committee. In rare cases, if the Editor has serious concerns about the ethics of a study, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds even if approval from an ethics committee has been obtained.

Research involving human subjects, human materials, or human data must have been performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki and must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee. The submitted study must be supported by ethics or bioethics committee approval. Authors reporting the use of a new procedure or tool in a clinical setting, for example as a technical advance or case report, must provide a clear justification in the manuscript for why the new procedure or tool was deemed more suitable than usual clinical practice to meet the patient’s clinical need. Such justification is not necessary if the new procedure is already approved for clinical use at the authors’ institution. Authors must have obtained ethics committee approval and informed patient consent for any experimental use of a new procedure or tool where a clear clinical advantage based on clinical need was not obvious before treatment.

Retrospective ethics approval 

If a study did not obtain ethics committee approval beforehand, retrospective ethics approval is usually unattainable, and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor's discretion.

Research Reporting Guidelines 

Authors are encouraged to use the relevant research reporting guidelines for the study type provided by the EQUATOR Network. This will help ensure that you provide enough information for editors, peer reviewers, and readers to understand how the research was conducted and to evaluate whether the findings are likely 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 

Obtaining written informed consent from individuals, their parents, or legal guardians for those under 18 is mandatory for any manuscripts containing personal details, images, or videos. The consent should permit publication of these details under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, allowing free internet access. If the person is deceased, consent must be obtained from their next of kin. The manuscript must include a statement confirming that written informed consent was obtained for publication. 

The consent form should state that the details, images, and videos will be available freely on the internet and accessible to the public. In cases where images are completely unidentifiable and there are no relevant details reported in the manuscript, consent for publication may not be necessary. The final decision on whether consent is needed lies with the Editor.

Dual Use Research of Concern 

Some manuscripts may contain information that could potentially be misused, posing significant threats to public health, safety, or security, as well as to agricultural crops, plants, animals, or the environment. The potential benefits of publishing such information must outweigh any risks involved. We reserve the right to seek expert advice in situations where we believe concerns may arise, and we might require peer review specifically to assess the dual-use risk. Publication may be declined if the potential risks of misuse outweigh the benefits and might be corrected, retracted, or removed after publication. Researchers are responsible for following institutional, funder, and national regulations, as well as addressing dual-use concerns, including biosecurity, nuclear, and chemical threats. If applicable, authors should communicate their study as dual-use research of concern and provide the authority granting approval and reference number. Manuscripts discussing harmful materials outside laboratory contexts should detail suitable containment procedures.

We recognize the importance of openness in science for alerting society to potential threats and protecting against them. However, we expect that the risks of publishing a paper will rarely be seen as greater than the benefits as long as the paper meets the criteria for publication.

Trial Registration 

According to ICMJE guidelines, a clinical trial is defined as "any research project that prospectively assigns people or groups to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the cause-and-effect relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome."

The journal requires prospective registration of all clinical trials in a publicly accessible registry recognized by the ICMJE, such as ClinicalTrials.gov or the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). Trial registration details must be included in the manuscript.

To maintain the highest quality standards, authors must provide detailed information about their statistical methods and measures, including a justification for the chosen statistical test. Reviewers will assess the suitability of the statistical methods, and if necessary, the submission may be sent to a specialist for further review. Editors may also seek 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.