Ethical Principles

The journal is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, accountability, fairness, confidentiality, and editorial independence. Its ethical framework is developed with reference to internationally recognized principles and recommendations, including the COPE Core Practices, the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Updated January 2026, and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

All authors, editors, reviewers, and other participants in the publication process are expected to act responsibly, honestly, transparently, and in accordance with accepted standards of scholarly and medical publishing.

Editorial decisions are based on the scientific merit, originality, methodological rigor, reliability, ethical acceptability, and relevance of the manuscript to the journal’s Aims and Scope. Commercial, financial, institutional, personal, or other inappropriate interests must not influence editorial decisions.

The journal does not tolerate fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, duplicate or redundant publication, manipulation of data, images, citations or peer review, undisclosed conflicts of interest, unethical research practices, or other forms of research and publication misconduct. Ethical concerns identified before or after publication may be investigated and addressed through appropriate editorial and post-publication actions.

Research involving human participants, particularly newborns, infants, children, adolescents, and other vulnerable groups, must meet applicable ethical requirements for research oversight, informed consent, privacy, and protection of participants, as detailed in the journal’s Research Ethics Policy.