Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

The Medical Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (MJMS) is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics. The journal follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME). All parties involved in publishing – authors, editors, reviewers and the publisher – are expected to follow the standards below.

Duties of authors

  • Originality: submitted work must be original, must not have been published before, and must not be under consideration by another journal.
  • Authorship: only people who meet all four ICMJE authorship criteria may be listed as authors. Others who contributed should be named in the Acknowledgements. Any change of authorship after submission requires the written agreement of all authors and the approval of the editor.
  • Ethics approval: research involving human participants, human data or tissue, or animals must have been approved by a recognised ethics committee or institutional review board. The manuscript must state the name of the committee and the approval reference number.
  • Informed consent: written informed consent must be obtained from all human participants (or their guardians). Case reports require the patient's written consent for publication. Identifying details must be removed.
  • Reporting standards: authors should follow the relevant reporting guideline, e.g. CONSORT (trials), STROBE (observational studies), PRISMA (systematic reviews), CARE (case reports), ARRIVE (animal research), SQUIRE (quality improvement).
  • Data: authors must present data accurately and should keep raw data available for editorial review for at least five years after publication.
  • Disclosure: all funding sources and conflicts of interest must be declared using the ICMJE disclosure form (see the ICMJE Conflict Disclosure Form policy).
  • Errors: authors who find a significant error in their published work must inform the journal promptly and cooperate with a correction or retraction.

Duties of editors

  • Editors evaluate manuscripts only on their academic merit, relevance to the journal's scope, and validity, without regard to the authors' race, gender, religion, nationality, institution or political views.
  • Editors keep all information about submitted manuscripts confidential.
  • Editors declare conflicts of interest and withdraw from handling any manuscript where a conflict exists.
  • Editors ensure that every manuscript receives fair, independent and timely peer review, and they take reasonable action when ethical concerns are raised.

Duties of reviewers

  • Reviewers keep manuscripts confidential and must not share, cite or use their content.
  • Reviewers must not upload manuscripts, or any part of them, into generative AI tools.
  • Reviewers declare conflicts of interest and decline reviews they cannot complete objectively or on time.
  • Reviewers give objective, constructive and evidence-based comments and alert the editor to any suspected misconduct.

Duties of the publisher

The Institute of Health Care Management and Development (IHCMD) guarantees the editorial independence of the journal. Commercial interests, including article processing charges, have no influence on editorial decisions.

Handling of misconduct

Suspected misconduct – including plagiarism, data fabrication or falsification, image manipulation, duplicate or redundant publication, authorship disputes, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts of interest, peer-review manipulation, or links to paper mills – is investigated following the COPE flowcharts. Depending on the outcome, the journal may reject the manuscript, publish a correction, expression of concern or retraction, inform the authors' institutions or funders, and bar the authors from submitting for a defined period.