[Sigmetrics] Conflicting interests (J BUON)

[Rajko]

 JBUON 2015; 20(5): 1373-1377
ISSN: 1107-0625, online ISSN: 2241-6293 • www.jbuon.com
E-mail: editorial_office at jbuon.co

Conflicting interests involved in the process of publishing in biomedical journals

Rajko Igić 
Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Stroger Hospital of Cook County, Chicago, Illinois 60612, USA, and Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Medical School, University of Banja Luka, 78000 Banja Luka, Republic of Srpska, Bosnia & Herzegovina

Summary

This short discussion on conflicting interests in publishing is designed to help all participants (authors, editors and peer reviewers) in the publication of biomedical papers. Au¬thors who submit manuscripts to a journal are responsi¬ble for the overall quality and integrity of the paper. The main goal of the editor is to provide readers with the most relevant information by insuring proper presentation and interpretation of scientific data. The editor informs read¬ers on potential conflicting interests of the authors to ena¬ble the reader to judge a paper in a more informative way. However, the editor must also consider potential conflicting interests of peer reviewers. If a peer reviewer has a poten¬tial conflicting interest in evaluating a manuscript, he/she should not accept the job of reviewing it. If the editor or any member of the executive board has a similar conflict of interest for an article under consideration, including an ed¬itorial for this journal, such persons should not participate in the vote to endorse the article, and the journal should publish a note to that effect. When an article is published in the local language for a “small scientific community,” there is always a risk that peer review could reflect personal relationships and animosities. Blinding the reviewer to the author(s) might eliminate a reviewer’s conflict of interests, but this is not always possible or even desirable. A better solution would be to have the journal publish all scientific articles in English. This would provide both wider reader¬ship and a larger group of international reviewers. To gain better reviewers, the journal staff could educate young local investigators by publishing educational articles. Advantag¬es and disadvantages of publishing a statement on conflict¬ing interests are discussed.
Key words: authors, conflict of interest,editors, peer re¬viewers, statements of conflicting interests

Introduction 
Authors submit manuscripts according to acceptance criteria for specific journals. Editors, with help of reviewers, assess the manuscripts and make final decisions on publication. The main goal of the editor is to fulfill the needs of his readers, providing the most current and relevant information by proper presentation and interpre¬tation of research data. It is well known that par¬ticipants in the publication process, authors, peer reviewers, and editors, sometimes have potential financial interests or other concerns related to the articles under consideration. 
This brief discussion on conflicting interests of all participants in the publishing process may help readers to understand what can be done to provide better evaluation of manuscripts and in¬crease the credibility of published articles...




Correspondence to: Rajko Igić, MD, PhD. Čitaonička 21, 25000 Sombor, Serbia. E-mail: r.igic at excite.comReceived: 20/04/2015; Accepted: 07/05/2015




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