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Publication considerations

Informed consent

The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia is guided by the principle statement on Informed Consent made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ('Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals' – October 2008). 

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, or pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives written informed consent for publication. Informed consent for this purpose requires that an identifiable patient be shown the manuscript to be published. Authors should disclose to these patients whether any potential identifiable material might be available via the Internet as well as in print after publication. Patient consent should be written and archived either with the journal, the authors, or both, as dictated by local regulations or laws. Applicable laws vary from locale to locale, and journals should establish their own policies with legal guidance.

Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance, and editors should so note, that such alterations do not distort scientific meaning.

 Conflict of interest

The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia is guided by the principle statement on Conflict of Interest made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ('Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals' – October 2008). 

Public trust in the peer-review process and the credibility of published articles depend in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that inappropriately influence (bias) his or her actions (such relationships are also known as dual commitments, competing interests, or competing loyalties). These relationships vary from negligible to great potential for influencing judgment. Not all relationships represent true conflict of interest. On the other hand, the potential for conflict of interest can exist regardless of whether an individual believes that the relationship affects his or her scientific judgment. Financial relationships (such as employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and paid expert testimony) are the most easily identifiable conflicts of interest and the most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, the authors, and of science itself. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.

Authors are therefore required to disclose any possible conflict of interest when submitting a manuscript. These can include financial conflicts of interest e.g. patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, speaker's fee. All conflicts of interest (or information specifying the absence of conflict of interest) should be included at the end of the article under ‘Conflicts of interest’. This information will be included in the published article.

If the author does not have any conflict of interest the following statement should be included: ‘No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).’

Editorial members of the Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia are encouraged to publish in the journal. To avoid conflicts of interest, editors do not process their own manuscripts. If a member of the editorial team is submitting to the Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia, then the Journal Editor will exclude them from viewing any details related to their manuscript and also prevent the manuscript from being allocated to them for review, regardless of their place in the authorship of the manuscript. If the Journal Editor is submitting a manuscript then the manuscript will be allocated to one of the editors for processing. Editors are also urged to be aware of other potential conflicts of interest such as processing manuscripts by collaborators and colleagues. Such situations are unavoidable but editors are expected to exercise discretion and fairness regardless of any proximity to submitting authors.

Funding

The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia requires authors to specify any sources of funding (institutional, private and corporate financial support) for the work reported in their manuscript. This information should be provided when the manuscript is submitted; at the end of the article, under the heading ‘Funding’;  and include the name of the funding organisation/s and the grant number. In-kind funding, such as waived costs for medical goods or services or other items, should be discussed with the Journal Editor at the point of submission and advice on whether a declaration is required will be mutually agreed upon. 

If there was no funding, the following wording should be used: ‘This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.’ Any suppliers of materials should be named and their location (town, state/county, country) included, if appropriate. This information will be included in the published article. The funder must be acknowledged in all types of submitted manuscripts associated with funding, and the funder letter and amount of funding must be uploaded with the manuscript.

Ethical statement

The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia is guided by the principle statement on Human Research Ethics made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ('Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals' – October 2008).

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975,  as revised in 2000 (5). If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.