ETHICS POLICY

Ethics Policy

Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Sapiens in Health Sciences International Journal (SHSIJ) upholds an unwavering commitment to the highest ethical standards in academic publishing. To ensure the integrity of the editorial process, the journal adheres to the COPE Code of Conduct and the guidelines established by the ICMJE, ensuring ethical practices in the execution, presentation, review, and publication of research. Below are the fundamental ethical principles. For detailed information, it is recommended to consult the official documentation of COPE and ICMJE.

Responsibilities of the Editorial Committee

Editorial Independence and Impartial Evaluation

The editorial team must evaluate manuscripts exclusively based on their academic quality, originality, clarity, and relevance to the scope of the journal, without considering personal factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or institutional affiliation of the authors. Editorial decisions must remain independent of external influences, including governmental or institutional pressures, and fall solely under the authority of the Editor-in-Chief.

Confidentiality

All information related to submitted manuscripts must be treated with strict confidentiality. Only the corresponding author, reviewers, and essential editorial staff may access details of the editorial process.

Conflicts of Interest and Disclosure

The use of unpublished information contained in manuscripts for personal or financial gain is strictly prohibited without the express written consent of the authors. In case of a conflict of interest between an editor and the authors, institutions, or funding sources of the article, the editor must recuse themselves from the evaluation process and delegate it to another member of the editorial committee.

Ethics in Scientific Publishing

All research must comply with ethical regulations established in the respective region or country, and it is the authors’ responsibility to obtain the necessary authorizations before conducting the study.

When manuscripts include images of participants, their identity and privacy must be protected. In this context, SHSIJ follows the ICMJE Recommendations for the preparation, presentation, editing, and publication of academic articles, available at the following link: ICMJE Recommendations.

Research Involving Humans and Animals

Studies involving human or animal experimentation must comply with the Ethical Code of the Declaration of Helsinki, available in English and its Spanish version.

Authors must obtain informed consent from all participants and explicitly declare it in the manuscript.

Randomized clinical trials must have approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or an equivalent ethics committee according to local legislation, disclose funding sources, and be registered in a public clinical trial database, such as ClinicalTrials.gov.

Conflicts of Interest

All authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that may influence the development, analysis, or publication of the study. If no conflicts of interest exist, the following statement should be included in the corresponding section of the manuscript:

"Conflicts of interest: none."

If a conflict exists, authors must report it in the relevant section and attach the Conflict of Interest Disclosure using the format proposed by the ICMJE, available at this link. The information provided in the disclosure must match the presentation in the manuscript.

Further details on conduct and conflict of interest disclosure can be found in section II-B-2 of the ICMJE Recommendations, accessible at: ICMJE Recommendations.

Funding Statement

Authors must indicate the institutions providing financial support for the research and/or manuscript preparation, specifying their role in the study design, data collection and analysis, manuscript writing, and decision to submit for publication.

If the research did not receive funding, this must be explicitly stated in the corresponding section of the manuscript.