Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Research involving patients, caregivers, nurses, healthcare professionals, communities, or other human participants through surveys, interviews, clinical observations, interventions, focus groups, patient records, behavioral data, or other participant-based methods must comply with applicable institutional, national, professional, and clinical ethical requirements.

• The approving ethics committee or institutional review board must be identified where approval is required.
• The ethics approval/reference number should be reported where applicable.
• Authors must explain how informed consent was obtained where required.
• An approved waiver of consent must be disclosed and justified.
• Patient and participant privacy, dignity, safety, and confidentiality must be protected.
• Consent for publication is required where patients or participants may reasonably be identified.
• Additional safeguards must be reported when vulnerable participants are involved.
• Clinical or nursing interventions must comply with applicable professional standards and patient-safety requirements.

Nursing and healthcare research may involve confidential patient records, electronic health records, nursing documentation, care plans, clinical observations, laboratory information, caregiver information, institutional records, or proprietary healthcare datasets.

• Authors must have lawful and authorized access to the clinical or healthcare data used.
• Patient and participant information must be anonymized or de-identified where appropriate.
• Protected health information and personally identifiable information must be handled securely.
• Institutional, contractual, legal, and third-party restrictions on healthcare data must be followed.
• Authors must not disclose identifiable clinical information without appropriate authorization and consent.
• Images, case descriptions, or clinical details that may identify a patient require appropriate consent for publication.
• Restrictions affecting data sharing must be clearly stated in the Data Availability Statement.

Authors must report research methods and analytical procedures with sufficient clarity to permit scientific evaluation and, where possible, replication.

• Research design and methodological approach must be clearly identified.
• Population, sample, patients, participants, caregivers, nurses, healthcare professionals, cases, settings, or data sources must be explained.
• Sampling, recruitment, inclusion, and exclusion procedures must be transparent.
• Clinical, nursing, behavioral, or measurement instruments must be clearly described.
• Statistical, qualitative, clinical, epidemiological, or other analytical procedures must be reported appropriately.
• Assumptions, exclusions, transformations, missing-data handling, and analytical decisions should be reported where relevant.
• Clinical trials should follow appropriate reporting standards such as CONSORT where applicable.
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow an appropriate reporting framework such as PRISMA where applicable.
• Observational studies should follow relevant reporting guidance such as STROBE where applicable.
• Qualitative research should follow appropriate transparent reporting standards where applicable.

Editors are responsible for maintaining a fair, confidential, independent, and evidence-based editorial process.

• Base decisions on scholarly quality, originality, methodology, relevance, clinical or nursing significance, and ethical compliance.
• Apply journal policies consistently and without inappropriate discrimination.
• Maintain confidentiality of manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, patient-related information, and editorial records.
• Protect reviewer identities under the journal's double-blind model.
• Declare conflicts of interest and recuse themselves when impartiality may be compromised.
• Select reviewers with appropriate academic, clinical, nursing, and methodological expertise.
• Prevent coercive citation, authorship manipulation, peer-review manipulation, and inappropriate editorial influence.
• Address complaints, appeals, and integrity concerns fairly.
• Take proportionate corrective action when the scholarly record is unreliable.
• Ensure that APC payment or waiver status does not influence editorial decisions.

• Provide objective, constructive, respectful, independent, and timely assessments.
• Accept assignments only when appropriate expertise and sufficient time are available.
• Treat manuscripts, clinical data, supplementary files, patient information, and correspondence as confidential.
• Disclose financial, professional, institutional, collaborative, academic, clinical, or personal conflicts.
• Decline reviews where impartiality may reasonably be compromised.
• Report suspected plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, duplicate publication, unethical clinical practice, or other misconduct confidentially to the editor.
• Avoid personal criticism, hostile language, unsupported allegations, and discriminatory comments.
• Recommend citations only when genuinely relevant to the manuscript.
• Never use unpublished information for personal or professional advantage.
• Do not upload confidential manuscripts, patient data, or unpublished research data to public generative AI systems.

• Submit original work that has not been formally published and is not under review elsewhere.
• Report methods, analyses, findings, clinical implications, limitations, and conclusions honestly and accurately.
• Retain supporting data and documentation where appropriate.
• Provide accurate citations and verifiable references.
• Obtain required ethics approvals, informed consent, permissions, and data-use authorization.
• Protect patient and participant confidentiality.
• Disclose funding sources and the role of funders.
• Disclose actual or potential conflicts of interest.
• Ensure all listed authors qualify for authorship.
• Obtain approval from all authors for the submitted version and author order.
• Disclose relevant use of generative AI.
• Notify the journal promptly if a significant error, patient-safety issue, or ethical problem is discovered.

Authorship must reflect substantial scholarly contribution and accountability. The journal applies the four authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

1. Substantial contribution to the conception/design or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
2. Drafting or critical intellectual review of the manuscript;
3. Final approval of the version to be published; and
4. Agreement to be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work.

• Author contributions should be described using appropriate CRediT roles.
• Non-author contributors should be acknowledged with permission.
• Authorship changes require written justification and agreement from all affected authors.
• Artificial intelligence tools cannot qualify as authors.

Authors, reviewers, editors, and Editorial Board members must disclose relationships that may influence, or reasonably appear to influence, their judgment.

Authors must identify funding sources, grant numbers where applicable, and the role of the funder in study design, participant recruitment, clinical procedures, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and publication decisions.

• A Data Availability Statement must be included in research manuscripts.
• Data repositories, persistent identifiers, access conditions, or restrictions should be reported.
• De-identified clinical or research data, analytical code, instruments, questionnaires, protocols, or supplementary material should be shared where ethically and legally possible.
• Restrictions arising from patient privacy, confidentiality, ethics approval, institutional policy, contracts, or proprietary data must be explained.
• Fabrication, concealed deletion, inappropriate alteration, selective exclusion, or misleading presentation of clinical or research data is prohibited.
• The Editorial Team may request underlying data, protocols, ethical documentation, or supporting records when necessary to evaluate research integrity.

All manuscripts may be screened using Turnitin. The journal normally requires an overall similarity index below 20%, subject to editorial assessment of the nature and location of the matching material.

Unattributed copying, inappropriate paraphrasing, translation plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and undisclosed reuse of previously published material are prohibited.

• AI must not replace human scholarly judgment, clinical judgment, or authorship responsibility.
• Meaningful AI-assisted activity must be disclosed according to journal policy.
• Authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, references, analysis, interpretation, clinical implications, and conclusions.
• AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.
• AI-generated references, clinical information, data, analyses, or interpretations must be independently verified.
• Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, patient information, or unpublished clinical data into public generative AI systems.
• AI-assisted material must be checked for fabricated citations, factual errors, bias, unsafe clinical recommendations, and misleading content.

Eligible manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers.

• Reviewer selection is based on subject, nursing, clinical, and methodological expertise.
• Authors and reviewers remain anonymous to one another during review.
• Reviewer recommendations inform, but do not determine, the final editorial decision.
• Conflicting reviewer recommendations may result in additional review.
• Editors who are authors or have conflicts must not participate in handling the manuscript.
• Acceptance or rejection is based on scholarly merit, clinical relevance, and ethical compliance rather than financial or commercial considerations.

The journal does not tolerate conduct that undermines the reliability, transparency, fairness, safety, or integrity of scholarly publishing.

Credible concerns are evaluated fairly, confidentially, consistently, and without presuming misconduct before relevant evidence has been assessed.

1. Initial assessment: determine whether the concern is specific, credible, relevant, and within the journal's responsibility.
2. Clarification: request explanations, original data, clinical records, ethics documents, consent documentation, protocols, or supporting evidence where necessary.
3. Independent advice: seek nursing, clinical, methodological, statistical, ethical, or legal expertise where appropriate.
4. Institutional coordination: contact institutions, research-integrity offices, funders, ethics committees, healthcare organizations, or other responsible bodies where necessary.
5. Editorial action: take proportionate action according to the evidence and seriousness of the concern.

Formal notices will identify the affected article, explain the reason for the action, remain freely accessible, and be linked permanently to the scholarly record where applicable.

A manuscript is not considered formally withdrawn until the Editorial Office has reviewed the withdrawal request and provided written confirmation. Ethical concerns such as duplicate submission, authorship disputes, suspected plagiarism, patient-safety concerns, or research misconduct may continue to be investigated even if an author requests withdrawal.

Authors and other stakeholders may raise concerns about editorial procedures, reviewer conduct, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, citation coercion, authorship handling, publication charges, clinical or ethical matters, patient privacy, or research-integrity procedures.

An editorial appeal should identify a material factual error, procedural irregularity, substantial misunderstanding, inappropriate application of journal policy, or relevant evidence that was overlooked.

Where independent assessment is necessary, complaints or appeals will be considered by an editor or qualified person who was not materially involved in the original matter.

• Authors must submit original work and respect third-party intellectual-property rights.
• Permission must be obtained for copyrighted third-party material, clinical images, figures, instruments, questionnaires, or other protected content where required.
• Authors retain the full copyright of their work.
• The journal receives a non-exclusive right of first publication.

Manuscripts, reviewer reports, author responses, ethical documents, patient information, clinical data, personal information, allegations, investigations, and editorial correspondence are treated as confidential.

The journal maintains appropriate editorial records to document manuscript decisions, reviewer activity, revisions, ethical assessments, complaints, appeals, corrections, and integrity investigations in accordance with applicable legal and institutional requirements.