GMPC Policy on Ethical Approval for Research Involving Human Subjects

All studies, investigations, or research using human subjects must follow the rules of the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975. Principally, research involving human subjects should be directed to benefit society, particularly public health. However, scientific publications involving human subjects must include adherence to ethical standards in clinical research. GMPC journals believe in the statement that the publication of clinical research is a monitor of the implemented research ethics and an audit of the local and regional ethics committees that approved it. Therefore, GMPC Journals follow the COPE guidelines regarding "good publication practice ". GMPC journals recommend authors check and review COPE guidelines to ensure their studies adhere to them.

Research involving humans. Manuscripts about human subjects (human or patient data and/or human samples such as materials, tissue, blood, etc.) in the GMPC journals require the following:
i) Formal ethical approval from an appropriately constituted research ethics committee is required. The approval should contain all relevant information about the type of materials or metadata used in the study, project name, ID number of samples, date of approval, and the ethics committee's name. Authors should obtain this approval before the beginning of the study, confirming that the study follows all national and international guidelines.
ii) If ethical approval is not required to carry out the study, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee explaining why ethical approval was not required and highlighting that the research is ethically acceptable.
iii) Authors should provide participants with relevant information about the personal data that will be collected, how it will be used, and for what purpose it will be used. Participants have the right to control their personal data, particularly in sensitive contexts or when dealing with vulnerable individuals. In many cases, authors need to obtain written consent before participants can be included in the study. Identifying details of participants should not be published unless essential for scholarly purposes and with written informed consent. While complete anonymity is difficult to achieve in some cases, authors should still strive to protect participants' privacy. If there is any doubt about whether written informed consent is required or not, it's best to obtain it. Consent is required, regardless of whether the material is collected from living or deceased patients. Confidentiality and the wishes of the deceased should be respected. When conducting a study, participants may agree to participate but may not want their data published. Therefore, it is crucial for authors to obtain consent not only for participation in the study but also for publication of their data before submitting the paper to a journal. This is especially crucial in case studies. Authors should include a statement about informed consent in the declaration section of the article information before references. This summary declares that research participants provided informed consent to participate and for publication. Otherwise, the statement can be replaced by the word 'Not applicable' if it is not relevant to the manuscript. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the statements provided in the manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to reject submissions that do not meet the guidelines described in this section or remove the data from publication if authors have not obtained informed consent. The paper may also be retracted using a notice explaining the reason for the retraction. When authors cannot give full informed consent, research should follow international guidelines, such as those of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS)

Last updated: 15-Feb-2023