Policies of Conflict of Interest (COI)

COI policy of Asia-Pacific Journal of Pharmacotherapy & Toxicology (AJPT) generally continues to be subject to COPE's advice. Conflicts of interest (often referred to as competing interests or dual loyalties) are normal and sometimes unavoidable. A conflict of interest is primarily a secondary interest (such as personal, commercial, political, academic or financial) that may have some influence on the judgment of the main decision, in this case the content of the publication. They are described as things that, when later revealed, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. Financial benefits may include a lot of items, such as employment, research grants, sponsorships, stock or share ownership, lecture or travel expenses, consulting, company support for any part of a paper commissioned/funded/sponsored by an employee, any financial or potential financial benefits, or the involvement of a public relations firm.

Management of Conflicts of Interest

AJPT anticipates that any conflicts of interest, including potential ones, must be identified and addressed. If you question the existence of a conflict, err on the side of misdisclosure. Most conflicts of interest can be managed well by following the following procedures: However, in some cases, conflicts of interest are too extreme to be published.

This does not list the full range of potential conflicts, but rather indicates the range of potential conflicts of interest:

A. Potential Author COIs Authors are required to consider all aspects, including taking conflict of interest into account in the instructions given to authors and then stating it in writing on the form.

B. Potential Reviewer COIs The journal uses a single-blind review; however, the editors exclude individuals with potential COIs. The editors also attempt to satisfy the authors and exclude potential reviewers because they may be genuine COIs, and if this is achieved, the review is likely to be rigorous and comprehensive. When invited to review, each person must disclose any coi that might bias their opinion, and sometimes must waive their credentials to review. If a COI is evident during the review process, the reviewer must contact the journal office and, where appropriate, request recusal. The following situations are considered conflicts and should be avoided:

a) Co-authored at least one paper in the last 3 years;
b) Colleagues in the same group/department or similar organizational unit for the last 3 years;
c) Supervising/having supervised the author's doctoral work or are supervising/have supervised the author's doctoral work;
d) To gain professional or personal benefit from the review;
e) Maintainning a personal relationship with the author (e.g. family, close friends);

f) There is a direct or indirect financial interest in the papers being reviewed.

A conflict of interest is not considered to exist if the reviewer and the author work together in a collaborative project (e.g. EU), or if they jointly organize an event.

Editorial Board Member

Articles by editorial board members will be considered to be of that type and will go through the same peer review process. In this case, another editor will be assigned to manage the peer review process. If no editor can determine who does not have a conflict of interest, then a guest editor may be invited to manage the manuscript. Any guest editor must have a good knowledge of the subject.

Potential Editor COI

Editors do not act as decision makers, especially in articles where they perceive a conflict of interest with the author, such as collaborating with the author or conducting competitive research. Editors work with authors for a maximum of six months, and if they are within that period, they may be eligible to edit an article. In the editor's opinion, it is impossible to overcome certain conflicts, such as personal friendships, which time cannot limit. Being familiar with the author does not in itself mean that the editor is therefore unable to manage the article. Editors should try to avoid articles with which they have a conflict of interest and discuss any concerns they have about their own conflict of interest with the editor-in-chief in order to select the most appropriate editor for the article.

Manuscripts submitted by co-editors are handled by the managing editor, who will designate the processing editor relevant to the topic and ultimately decide whether to accept or not. Manuscripts submitted by the Executive Editor will be processed by a co-Managing Editor, who will appoint/subject relevant processing editors and make the final decision on acceptance.

Standards of Reporting

The Journal requires all authors to follow the correct standards for reporting biomedical research. See EQUATOR for guidelines on health research and MIBBI for guidelines and tools on bioscience reporting. Authors are strongly advised to use these guidelines as a checklist when writing a manuscript.

Other checklists available include CONSORT for randomized controlled trials, PRISMA for systematic reviews, STROBE for observational studies, MOOSE for meta-analyses of observational studies, STARD for diagnostic accuracy studies, RATS for qualitative studies, and CHEERS for economic assessments.

The authors of the systematic review must provide a link in the methods section showing all the details of the search strategy. See the Cochrane for examples of search strategies.

Authors must use standardized gene nomenclature. The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee details the symbols and names of human genes. Other species of data can be found at https://www.genenames.org/help/faq/; The Human Genome Variation Society provides guidelines on mutation nomenclature.

Where appropriate, authors should follow the CARE guidelines for case reports, the STREGA guidelines for genetic association studies and the SRQR guidelines for qualitative studies.

The author shall comply with the relevant data preparation and record the current specific areas of the standard, at the same time, strict confidentiality for patients. In addition, when using unpublished data, authors must contact the data owner before starting their own research.

Human and Animal Testing

All human or animal research should be approved or exempted by an appropriate institutional human and/or animal subject Review committee or, if there is no formal ethics committee, in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration. Such approval or exemption should be stated in the methods section of the article.

When reporting animal experiments, authors should indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals have been followed. Further guidance about animal research ethics are available from the ARRIVE guide.

Patient Consent

All authors must declare that, where relevant, consent has been obtained from the patient (or, in the case of children under 16, from their parents or guardians) and that all reasonable steps have been taken to maintain patient confidentiality, including illustrations, which should be as anonymous as possible.

Clinical Trial Registration

The journal follows ICMJE's Clinical Trials Registration Statement. All clinical trials published in a journal must be registered in a public trial registry at or before the start of participant enrollment. Manuscripts should be submitted with an accurate URL and a unique trial registration identifier. This information will be published in the article and we ask that you include the URL and identification code on the title page of your article.

Clinical trials initiated before 2008 will be subject to retrospective registration. A list of recommended registries can be found on the ICMJE website. Results published in the same clinical trial registry where the primary registry is located will not be considered prior publication if presented in the form of a short abstract (500 words or less) or table.

Clinical trials must be reported in accordance with relevant reporting guidelines, namely the CONSORT of randomized controlled Trials, the TREND of non-randomized trials, and appropriate spcialized guidelines. Interventions should be described according to the requirements of the checklist and guide. Submissions must also include the research proposal as supporting information and, if accepted, will be published with the manuscript.

Authors of manuscripts describing clinical trial results must follow CONSORT reporting guidelines, which apply to their trial design and are available on the CONSORT Statement web site. Any deviation from the test protocol must be explained in the paper. Authors must explicitly discuss informed consent in the paper, and we reserve the right to request a copy of the patient's consent.

System Review Registration

Prospective registrations of systematic reviews are welcome, and we encourage all authors to register their systematic reviews with an appropriate registry such as PROSPERO. Please indicate the registration number on the last line of the abstract.