Compliance with Ethical Standards

To ensure objectivity and transparency in research, and accepted principles of ethical  have been followed, authors should include information regarding sources of funding, potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial), informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals.

Authors should include the following statements (if applicable) in a separate section entitled “Compliance with Ethical Standards” before the References when submitting a manuscript:

  • Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest
  • Research involving Human Participants and/or Animals
  • Informed consent

The corresponding author should be prepared to collect documentation of compliance with ethical standards and send if requested during peer review or after publication.

The Editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above- mentioned guidelines.

1. Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interests

Authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work. Although an author may not feel there is any conflict, disclosure of relationships and interests provides a more complete and transparent process, leading to an accurate and objective assessment of the work. Awareness of a real or perceived conflicts of interest is a perspective to which the readers are entitled. This is not meant to imply that a financial relationship with an organization that sponsored the research or compensation received for consultancy work is inappropriate. Examples of potential conflicts of interests that are directly or indirectly related to the research may include but are not limited to the following:

  • Employment or consultation
  • Financial support for attending symposia
  • Financial support for educational programs
  • Financial relationships, for example equity ownership or investment interest
  • Honoraria for speaking at symposia
  • Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
  • Intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights)
  • Multiple affiliations
  • Position on advisory board or board of directors or other type of management relationships
  • Research grants from funding agencies (please give the research funder and the grant number)
  • Support from a project sponsor
  • Holdings of spouse and/or children that may have financial interest in the work
  • Others that could have direct or potential influence or impart bias on the work

In addition, interests that go beyond financial interests and compensation (non-financial interests) that may be important to readers should be disclosed. These may include but are not limited to personal relationships or competing interests directly or indirectly tied to this research, or professional interests or personal beliefs that may influence your research.

The corresponding author collects the conflict of interest disclosure forms from all authors. In author collaborations where formal agreements for representation allow it, it is sufficient for the corresponding author to sign the disclosure form on behalf of all authors.

The corresponding author will include a summary statement in the text of the manuscript in a separate section before the reference list, which reflects what is recorded in the potential conflict of interest disclosure form(s).

See below examples of disclosures:

Funding: This study was funded by X (grant number X). Author A has received research grants from Company A.

Conflict of Interest: Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stock in Company Y. Author C is a member of committee Z.

If no conflict exists, the authors should state:

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

2. Research Involving Human Participants and/or Animals

(a) Statement of human rights

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach, and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

The following statements should be included in the text before the References section:

Ethical approval: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

For retrospective studies, please add the following sentence:

Ethical approval: For this type of study, informed consent is not required.

(b) Statement on the welfare of animals

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed, and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

For studies with animals, the following statement should be included in the text before the References section:

Ethical approval: All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

If applicable (where such a committee exists):

Ethical approval: All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted.

3. Informed Consent

All individuals have individual rights that are not to be infringed. Individual participants in studies have, e.g., the right to decide what happens to the (identifiable) personal data gathered, to what they have said during an interview or a study, as well as to any taken photograph. Hence it is important that all participants gave their informed consent in writing prior to inclusion in the study. Identifying details (names, dates of birth, identity numbers and other information) of the participants that were studied should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, and genetic profiles unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication. Complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, and informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of participants is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic profiles, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

The following statement should be included:

Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.