Publication Ethic And Malpractice Statement

1. General Principles

BJNHS is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, transparency, editorial independence, accountability, and responsible scholarly communication.

The journal’s ethical policies are guided by recognized principles and recommendations from the Committee on Publication Ethics, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and other relevant international standards for scholarly publishing and health research.

The ethical responsibilities described in this statement apply to authors, editors, reviewers, editorial-board members, and the publisher.

2. Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for:

  • Evaluating manuscripts fairly and independently;

  • Making decisions based on scientific merit, originality, relevance, methodological quality, ethical integrity, and clarity;

  • Protecting the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts;

  • Ensuring that personal, institutional, financial, political, religious, gender, ethnic, or national considerations do not improperly influence editorial decisions;

  • Selecting qualified and independent reviewers;

  • Identifying and managing conflicts of interest;

  • Protecting the integrity of the peer-review process;

  • Responding appropriately to allegations of research or publication misconduct;

  • Issuing corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other notices when necessary;

  • Providing authors with an opportunity to respond to serious concerns or allegations; and

  • Maintaining the integrity and reliability of the scholarly record.

Editors must not use unpublished information contained in submitted manuscripts for their own research or personal benefit without the authors’ written permission.

An editor who has a conflict of interest concerning a manuscript must withdraw from its assessment and transfer responsibility to another qualified editor.

Editorial decisions must remain independent of commercial considerations, institutional pressure, personal relationships, or the policies of the journal owner, except where legal or ethical obligations apply.

3. Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers are expected to:

  • Accept assignments only when they possess the necessary expertise;

  • Complete reviews within the agreed period;

  • Provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and respectful comments;

  • Maintain the confidentiality of the manuscript and review process;

  • Avoid personal criticism of authors;

  • Identify relevant work that has not been appropriately cited;

  • Notify the editor of suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, data fabrication, ethical violations, or substantial overlap with other publications;

  • Disclose actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest;

  • Decline a review when impartiality cannot be maintained; and

  • Refrain from using unpublished information for personal, professional, academic, or commercial advantage.

Reviewers must not share, distribute, reproduce, or upload submitted manuscripts to external platforms or artificial-intelligence systems when confidentiality and data security cannot be assured.

4. Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must ensure that their manuscripts:

  • Present original work;

  • Report methods and findings accurately, honestly, and transparently;

  • Do not contain fabricated, falsified, manipulated, or selectively omitted data;

  • Have not been published previously;

  • Are not simultaneously under consideration by another journal;

  • Properly acknowledge all sources and contributions;

  • Include all individuals who meet the authorship criteria;

  • Exclude individuals who do not qualify for authorship;

  • Disclose funding sources and conflicts of interest;

  • Describe ethical approval and informed-consent procedures where applicable;

  • Protect the privacy and confidentiality of research participants;

  • Comply with relevant research and reporting guidelines; and

  • Allow editors to investigate reasonable concerns about the integrity of the submitted or published work.

Authors should retain the original data and relevant research documentation for a reasonable period following publication. The journal may request access to anonymized data, ethical documents, instruments, protocols, or other supporting materials when necessary to assess the integrity of the work.

5. Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship should be limited to individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the work and who are able to take public responsibility for its content.

Each author should have:

  1. Made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, data collection, analysis, or interpretation of the study;

  2. Participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content;

  3. Approved the final version to be published; and

  4. Agreed to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work.

Individuals who contributed to the study but do not meet all authorship criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section after their permission has been obtained.

Guest, gift, honorary, and ghost authorship are prohibited.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be accompanied by a written explanation and the written agreement of all authors. The journal reserves the right to investigate disputed authorship and may request clarification from the authors’ institutions.

6. Informed Consent

Written informed consent must be obtained from participants before their participation in research, unless an ethics committee has formally approved a waiver of consent.

Separate consent for publication must be obtained when a manuscript contains identifiable information, photographs, images, case details, or other material that could allow an individual to be recognized.

Consent from a parent, legal guardian, or authorized representative must be obtained when participants are unable to provide consent independently.

7. Reporting Guidelines

Authors should follow the reporting guideline appropriate to their study design, including, where applicable:

  • CONSORT for randomized trials;

  • STROBE for observational studies;

  • PRISMA for systematic reviews and meta-analyses;

  • COREQ or SRQR for qualitative studies;

  • CARE for case reports;

  • TREND for non-randomized intervention studies;

  • SPIRIT for clinical-trial protocols; and

The relevant checklist and flow diagram may be requested during submission or editorial review.

8. Data Fabrication, Falsification, and Image Manipulation

Fabrication, falsification, selective reporting, inappropriate data manipulation, and misleading alteration of images are prohibited.

Adjustments to images are acceptable only when applied to the entire image and when they do not obscure, remove, introduce, or misrepresent information.

The journal may request original data, unedited images, statistical outputs, research instruments, or other supporting documents when concerns arise.

Failure to provide a satisfactory explanation or supporting evidence may result in rejection, correction, retraction, notification of the relevant institution, or other appropriate action.

9. Conflicts of Interest

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, their work or decisions. The existence of a conflict of interest does not automatically prevent publication. However, it must be disclosed and managed transparently.

10. Funding Disclosure

Authors must identify all organizations or individuals that provided financial, material, technical, or institutional support for the research and publication.

Authors should explain the role of the funder in:

  • Study design;

  • Data collection;

  • Data analysis;

  • Data interpretation;

  • Manuscript preparation; and

  • The decision to submit the manuscript.

When the funder had no involvement in these activities, this should be stated.

11. Use of Artificial Intelligence and AI-Assisted Technologies

Artificial-intelligence systems, language models, chatbots, and other AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the accuracy, integrity, originality, or ethical conduct of the work.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to BJNHS, including content developed or edited using AI-assisted tools.

Authors who use AI-assisted technology must disclose:

  • The name and version of the tool;

  • The purpose for which it was used; and

  • The sections or processes in which it was used.

Basic spelling, grammar, and reference-management tools generally do not require disclosure unless they substantially generate or alter intellectual content.

Authors must verify the accuracy of AI-generated material and ensure that it does not contain fabricated references, inaccurate statements, confidential information, plagiarism, or biased content.

Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts, data, figures, or review materials into AI systems where confidentiality, data protection, and secure processing cannot be guaranteed