Conflict of Interest

The journal considers conflict of interest when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). The journal requires that all participants in the peer-review and publication process including authors, peer reviewers, editors, and editorial board members must disclose all relationships that could be viewed as potential conflicts of interest. Submission of a signed disclosure of Conflicts of Interest certificate by all authors is mandatory at the time of submission. The manuscript will be published with the disclosure and sources of funding.
Conflict of interest statements must be provided at the end of the article. If no conflict of interest is mentioned by the authors, the following statement will be used by the publisher by default: "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Authors are required to disclose any sponsorship or funding received from any institution relating to their research. The editor(s) will determine what disclosures, if any, should be available to the readers.
Upon identification of any conflict of interest, the editors may require more information from the author that may include the following:

  • Acknowledgement of financial support/sponsorship in their contribution.
  • Any financial involvements that might present an appearance of a conflict of interest related to the contribution are disclosed in a covering letter accompanying the contribution and all such potential conflicts of interest will be discussed with the Editor as to whether disclosure of this information with the published contribution is to be made in the journal.
  • If they have signed an agreement with any sponsor of the research reported in the contribution that prevents you from publishing both positive and negative results or that forbids you from publishing this research without a prior approval of the sponsor