Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Yeditepe Journal of Health Sciences (YJHS) is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics. The editorial and publication processes of the journal are shaped in accordance with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). (https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing)

All parties involved in the publishing process (Editors, Reviewers, Authors, and Publishers) are expected to agree on the following ethical principles:

General Guidelines and Protocol Approvals

• Reporting Standards: The manuscripts should be prepared following the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, updated in January 2024. (https://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf)
• Human Rights: Approval of research protocols by the Ethics Committee, in accordance with international agreements and the Declaration of Helsinki, is required for all experimental, clinical, and drug studies. Ethics committee approval and the "informed consent form" must be explicitly stated in the "Materials and Methods" section.
• Animal Rights: In experimental animal studies, authors should state that they protect animal rights in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and that they have obtained an ethics committee approval report from their institution. (https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/5140/guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-laboratory-animals)

Studies Requiring Ethics Committee Approval

Ethics Committee approval is strictly mandatory for the following types of research:

• All kinds of research conducted with qualitative or quantitative approaches that require data collection from participants via surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, and experimental techniques.
• The use of humans and animals (including materials or data) for experimental or other scientific purposes.
• Clinical studies on humans.
• Research on animals.
• Retrospective studies in compliance with the laws on the protection of personal data.

Additionally, authors must ensure that:

• An "informed consent form" has been obtained and clearly stated in the case reports.
• Official permission has been obtained and specified from the copyright owners for the use of scales, questionnaires, or photographs belonging to others.
• A statement is provided confirming that all copyright regulations have been fully complied with for the intellectual and artistic works utilized.

Conflict of Interest and Unethical Practices

Authors are required to declare whether there is any conflict of interest with individuals or institutions, particularly regarding financial support. The conflict of interest statement must be placed at the very end of the manuscript.

YJHS will not accept or publish any manuscripts that are suspected of containing guest authorship, inappropriate acceptance, or references designed to artificially influence the review process. The following unethical practices are strictly forbidden:

• Plagiarism: Republishing all or part of another author’s work as if it were one's own, without proper citation.
• Fabrication: Publishing data, findings, and results that do not actually exist.
• Duplication (Copying): Using data from another publication, including the reproduction and republication of a work in other languages.
• Salami Slicing: Artificially dividing the results of a single study into multiple, separate publications to increase citation counts.

Ethical Resolution and Retractions

The Editorial Board, in coordination with the Statistical Editor, works systematically to resolve ethically controversial situations or allegations of misconduct. In compliance with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), manuscripts found to have ethical nonconformities or structural integrity issues will not be accepted for publication, subject to the editorial office's final decision.

If an ethical breach, data manipulation, or severe nonconformity is detected after a manuscript has been published, the formal withdrawal and retraction process will be strictly carried out in accordance with the COPE Retraction Guidelines. (https://publicationethics.org/files/cope-retraction-guidelines-v2.pdf)