Do Editorial Policies Support Ethical Research? A Thematic Text Analysis of Author Instructions in Psychiatry Journals

Abstract

IntroductionAccording to the Declaration of Helsinki and other guidelines, clinical studies should be approved by a research ethics committee and seek valid informed consent from the participants. Editors of medical journals are encouraged by the ICMJE and COPE to include requirements for these principles in the journal’s instructions for authors. This study assessed the editorial policies of psychiatry journals regarding ethics review and informed consent.Methods and FindingsThe information given on ethics review and informed consent and the mentioning of the ICMJE and COPE recommendations were assessed within author’s instructions and online submission procedures of all 123 eligible psychiatry journals. While 54% and 58% of editorial policies required ethics review and informed consent, only 14% and 19% demanded the reporting of these issues in the manuscript. The TOP-10 psychiatry journals (ranked by impact factor) performed similarly in this regard.ConclusionsOnly every second psychiatry journal adheres to the ICMJE’s recommendation to inform authors about requirements for informed consent and ethics review. Furthermore, we argue that even the ICMJE’s recommendations in this regard are insufficient, at least for ethically challenging clinical trials. At the same time, ideal scientific design sometimes even needs to be compromised for ethical reasons. We suggest that features of clinical studies that make them morally controversial, but not necessarily unethical, are analogous to methodological limitations and should thus be reported explicitly. Editorial policies as well as reporting guidelines such as CONSORT should be extended to support a meaningful reporting of ethical research.

An Analysis of Medical Laboratory Technology Journals’ Instructions for Authors

“…We found that these questions had the highest portion of positive answers and were clearly stated in most journals (0.88, 0.84 and 0.80 for Declaration of Helsinki standards, approval by institutional ethics committee and informed consent, respectively). The discrepancies between our study and the one conducted by Strech et al (2014) could come from the fact that these studies covered two significantly different groups of journals-''Psychiatry'' and ''Medical Laboratory Technology'', each with different procedures and practices. Nonetheless, questions of research ethics should always require proper attention, no matter the research field.…”

“…Also, we found that instructions for authors in ''Medical Laboratory Technology'' subject group include recommendations concerning ethical research more often than those for editorial policy and research integrity. In a study of 123 psychiatry journals' instructions for authors, Strech et al (2014) reported that only 37 % referred to Declaration of Helsinki, 54 % required or recommended ethics review and 58 % required or recommended informed consent. We found that these questions had the highest portion of positive answers and were clearly stated in most journals (0.88, 0.84 and 0.80 for Declaration of Helsinki standards, approval by institutional ethics committee and informed consent, respectively).…”

New Issues for New Methods: Ethical and Editorial Challenges for an Experimental Philosophy

“…Whilst previous studies (e.g. Asai and Shingu 1999 ; Bosch et al 2012 ; Strech et al 2014 ; Horvat et al 2015 ) had typically only focused on instructions for authors, it turns out that quite often the relevant information is required during the later (submission) stage. Notably, three of the 29 journals did not allow the coder to access information concerning the submission process, as they either have submission windows and the access was not allowed ( Philosophy and Phenomenological Research and Nous ) or required submission fees ( Philosophers’ Imprint ).…”

“… 14 Recent studies in different fields have shown that instructions to authors in journals often fail to require authors to state that the study was approved by an ethics committee and informed consent obtained from participants; articles also often omit mentioning these points (cf Weil et al 2002 ; Strech et al 2014 ). …”

Indicaciones éticas en las revistas de educación indexadas en la WoS

“…Sin embargo, no existen estudios que aborden la ética en este campo de forma integral, frente a lo que ocurre en el área biomédica (Bosch et al, 2012;Strech;Metz;Knüppel, 2014;Wu;Zou, 2015).…”