ETHICS & ADVERTISEMENT POLICIES

In all stages of our work, above all, ethics is our concern. Please refer to our pages about peer review policy and editorial policy to find out more related ethical concerns. 

We endorse the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) policies in editorial, peer review, advertisement, ethics, informed consent, handling cases requiring corrections, retractions, and editorial expressions of concern. We also respect policies of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Conflict of Interest
Conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) research grants from funding agencies (the research funder and the grant number are required), financial support for educational programs, employment or consultation, position on advisory board or board of directors or other types of management relationships, financial relationships, for example, receiving reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization that may gain or lose financially by the publication of the article in any way, intellectual property rights (e.g. patents, copyrights and royalties from such rights), holdings of spouse and/or children that may have a financial interest in the work.

Any conflict of interest related to the manuscript should be declared by authors. These include but not limited to commercial, personal, political, and intellectual aspects. All editors, editorial staff, and reviewers should also report potential conflict of interest related to the submissions they are working with. 

Informed Consent
Regarding human researches, an informed consent and ethical approval should be clearly mentioned in the method section. The author should also embrace that all experiments (human or animals) were performed in compliance with the relevant institutional guidelines, and also should state the institutional committee(s) name that approved the study.

Study Subjects
All animal studies should follow the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines. Protecting patient or animal rights under investigation is of great importance. The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. Reporting guidelines for some specific studies are recommended as follows. Randomized trials (CONSORT), Systematic reviews (PRISMA), Diagnostic studies (STARD), Study protocols (SPRIT), Clinical practice guidelines (AGREE), and Qualitative research (SRQR). Authors should adhere to the Declaration of Helsinki in medical research involving human subjects, human material, or human data. 

Independent local, regional or national review body should approve the study by receiving ethical approval from an ethics committee. Authors should guarantee the integrity of reported data and answer all comments raised by peer-reviewers during the production process. If the author fails to provide a satisfactory answer to the comments of peer-reviewers, the paper would be rejected. Ethical issues should be completely observed by the authors. All participants in a research project should be thoroughly informed about the aims of the study and any possible side effects.

Corrections and Retractions
We respect the research integrity therefore, a research integrity officer and committee have been assigned at our center. If serious scientific misconduct is found, the article will be retracted during any step of production or after post-publication. If fraudulent behavior is suspected, further investigations might include the author's higher authorities. Corrections or retractions of published articles will be made by publishing a correction or retraction note. In this way, the original article remains in the public and the subsequent note will be published. The decision to publish the correction or retraction is based on the COPE guidelines. However, if the error is minor, a correction statement will be published soon. Moreover, we will take responsibility if errors were caused by our side. If errors were caused by the authors, a Correction will be published in the next earliest possible issue.

Advertising Policy
We do not accept advertisements from 2015. However, we do believe that advertisements are independent of editorial decisions. All advertising contents should be clearly indicated as an advertisement, they should not be confused with the editorial contents and articles. Those advertisements seem to be unsafe for health or those disclosing racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious issues are not admissible. All advertisements for drug-related content should inspire rational use and must not be misleading in nature. Furthermore, editorial decisions and publisher assignments will not be predisposed by an advertisement and sponsors. The publisher has the right to withdraw drug-specific targeted campaigns to be linked in a specific article. All inquiries should be reviewed at the “Advertising Standards Committee” at the publisher's office. The editors and the publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or productions referred in the articles or advertisements.

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing
The Journal complies with the ICMJE uniform requirements for manuscripts. This is clearly indicated in the Submission Guidelines. Also, our affiliated Journal follows the COPE guidelines and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. The statements and opinions contained in this journal are solely those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the editor or the publisher's ones.