PROTECTION OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS: HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS POLICY
- PJHS aims to publish ethical and responsible research and expects from its contributors to adhere to international and national guidelines for the safety and protection of the research participants.
- PJHS requires all authors to declare any issues related with human and animal rights that may be inherent in their submissions.
- All articles under consideration that experiment on human subjects and animals in research are required to have institutional review board approvalin accordance with ethical standards set forth in the ICMJE- Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals.
- On rare occasions, when there is a suspicion that research has not been conducted within an appropriate ethical framework, editorial board ofPJHS may reject the manuscript (even if approval from an ethics committee has been obtained) and/or contact the author(s)’ ethics committee about the issue concerned.
ANIMALS RIGHTS POLICY
- PJHS publishes research conducted on animals and would like its contributors to strictly follow the national and international guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animal in research.
- Authors can take guidance on animal research ethics from WMA statement on animal use in biomedical research , International Association of Veterinary Editors’ Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare and Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals
- In addition to ICMJE recommendations, PJHS also support 3Rs principals (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) for humans and animals usage in research. Briefly 3Rs are mentioned below
Replacement: approaches, which avoid or replace the use of animals
Reduction: approaches, which minimize the number of animals used per experiment
Refinement: approaches which minimize animal suffering and improve welfare
- Prior to acceptance of a manuscript, to verify compliance with the above policies, the authors must:
- Provide ethical review committee approval certificate indicating that the study protocol was in accordance with international, national, and/or institutional guidelines.
- Declare that the experiments on animals were conducted in accordance with local Ethical Committee laws and regulations as regards care and use of laboratory animals.
- Sign a letter certifying that legal and ethical requirements have been met with regards to the humane treatment of animals described in the study;
- Indicate in the Methods (experimental procedures) section that appropriate measures were taken to minimize pain or discomfort, and details of animal care should be provided.
INFORMED CONSENT: Authors should submit the undertaking that informed consent was taken from the client if they involved the client-owned animals.HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY
- PJHS is following ICMJE Recommendations on Protection of Research Participants, and World Medical Association (WMA) Declaration of helsinki – ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects
- Authors reporting experiments on human subjects should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the national and international ethical standards on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.
- 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.
INFORMED CONSENT & MAINTAINING THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS- Authors of manuscripts presenting research on human subjects should provide a copy of ethical approval certificate along an undertaking that “informed consent to participate” was taken from adult participants and/or from parents/guardians of participants under 18 years of age. This should also be documented in methods section of the manuscript.
- Consent must be obtained for all Case Reports, Clinical Pictures, and Adverse Drug Reactions.
- Authors should avoid identifying patient information, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent/ guardian) gives written, informed consent for publication.
- If the research involves vulnerable populations such as children, prisoners, or individuals with cognitive impairments, additional safeguards and consent processes may be required to protect their rights and well-being.
- Consents might be required by the editor on images from participants in the study. Consent form must be made available to Editors on request, and will be treated confidentially.
- Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained, e.g. masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity.”
- Masked Study Participants – If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic malformations, authors should provide written assurance to the editors that alterations do not distort scientific meaning.
- Retrospective Studies: In cases where obtaining individual informed consent is impractical, PJHS may allow for a waiver of consent for retrospective studies that use de-identified data. However, strict ethical considerations and institutional review board approval are still necessary.
- Authors are advised to follow the CARE guidelines for case reports.
