Editorial Policy

First issued date February 10, 2022

 Revision as of October 6, 2023

  Revision as of May 3, 2024

The review and processing procedures for all matters related to research ethics, including ethical regulations and research misconduct (fabrication, falsification, manipulation, plagiarism, and duplicate publication), follow the "Guidelines on Good Publication Practice (3rd edition)" established by the Korean Association of Medical Journal Editors (KAMJE) (https://www.kamje.or.kr/board/view?b_name=bo_publication&bo_id=13&per_page=) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Guidelines (http://www.publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines).

1) Ethical Review Considerations

Research involving human subjects must comply with the ethical standards outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki (first adopted in 1964, last revised in 2013) (https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-research-involving-human-subjects/). Independent review by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) is required as a general principle.

For clinical trials, IRB approval and informed consent from participants must be obtained and explicitly stated in the manuscript. Additionally, any identifying information, such as patient names, initials, or hospital registration numbers, must not appear in photographs or other illustrative materials within the manuscript.

When submitting case reports to this journal, IRB approval is required for submissions involving five or more cases, and this must be clearly stated in the manuscript.

2) Authorship and Responsibilities

The corresponding author is responsible for direct communication with the editorial board throughout the submission, peer review, and publication processes. They must cooperate with the editorial board by providing author information, obtaining ethics committee approval, registering clinical trials, and collecting conflict of interest statements as required. Even after publication, the corresponding author must respond to the comments on the paper and comply with requests from the editorial board for data or additional information related to the study.

Co-authors share collective responsibility for the entire content of the manuscript. All authors must meet the following four criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, 2017):

1)    Significant contributions to the study’s conception or design or to data analysis and interpretation

2)    Substantial involvement in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content

3)    Approval of the final version of the manuscript

4)    Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the research, ensuring that any questions related to accuracy or integrity are properly investigated and resolved

Individuals who do not meet these authorship criteria should be acknowledged as contributors with their permission and listed in the "Acknowledgments" section.

If authorship changes are required after manuscript submission, consent from all authors must be obtained, and this must be documented with handwritten signatures and reported to the editorial board. Additionally, all authors must provide their Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) (https://orcid.org) when submitting the manuscript.

3) Conflicts of Interest Disclosure

Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest that could influence their research. This includes employment at, consulting for, or financial ties to relevant companies, such as stock ownership, receipt of honoraria, or travel support. Such disclosures must be explicitly stated at the bottom of the manuscript’s title page.

The corresponding author is responsible for verifying any potential conflicts of interest among co-authors and providing this information to the editorial board. Additionally, authors and individuals affiliated with the same institution as the authors must be excluded from reviewing the manuscript.

4) Prohibition of Duplicate Publication

Manuscripts that have already been published in another journal or are under review elsewhere will not be accepted for submission or publication. Similarly, manuscripts that have previously appeared in this journal in the same form cannot be resubmitted.

If a manuscript contains content similar to a previously published work in another journal or in this journal, the author must submit a copy of the previously published paper along with the new manuscript. The editorial board will determine whether the manuscript qualifies for secondary publication and decide on its acceptance accordingly.

Manuscripts published in this journal cannot be republished in another journal without permission. However, secondary publication is permitted if it meets the criteria specified in the "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals" (http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf).

6) Procedures for Research Ethics Violations

Research ethics violations may be identified through various means such as whistleblowing, awareness by the editorial board, recognition by peer reviewers, or voluntary reports by the authors. To protect whistleblowers, anonymous reporting is allowed, and the whistleblower’s identity is kept confidential. Furthermore, measures are in place to ensure that whistleblowers do not face disadvantages or retaliation because of their reports.

Whistleblowers, members of the editorial board, or peer reviewers who become aware of the research ethics violations must inform the editorial board chair via email. The editorial board chair will then assess whether the issue should be addressed and determine its severity.

Decisions regarding the rejection or retraction of the manuscript will be made through discussions between the Research Ethics Committee and the editorial board. Any additional disciplinary actions will be determined by the board of directors.

7) Definitions of Terms Related to Research Misconduct

Research misconduct refers to actions such as fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, and improper authorship in the proposal, conduct, reporting, and presentation of research. The definitions of the terms used in this regulation are as follows:

(1) Fabrication: Creating or recording research data, materials, or results that do not exist.

(2) Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or altering or deleting research data to distort research content or results.

(3) Plagiarism: Using another person's original ideas or creations without proper attribution, leading others to believe they are the researcher's own work. This includes:

a. Utilizing another author's research content entirely or partially without citation.

b. Using another author's words or sentence structures with minor modifications without citation.

c.     Using another author's original thoughts without citation.

d.    Using another author's work by translating it without citation.

(4) Duplicate Publication: Republishing the same or substantially similar work without citation, which was previously published by the researcher.

(5) Improper Authorship: Assigning authorship to individuals who have not made a scientific or technical contribution to the research or failing to assign authorship to those who have made such contributions.

<Supplementary Provisions>
(Effective Date) These regulations are effective from February 18, 2022.
<Supplementary Provisions>
(Effective Date) These regulations are effective from October 6, 2023.
<Supplementary Provisions>
(Effective Date) These regulations are effective from May 3, 2024