This policy applies to research published in JPPHealth, owned by Care Hospitals Saudi Arabia and published by Waraqa Evidence Company.

Ethical approval

Any research involving human or animal subjects should normally have obtained ethical approval from a formal body within the authors' institution, such as an institutional review board or research ethics committee. Ethical standards applicable at the place where the study was conducted are preferred. Ethical approval, or the reason it was not required, must be stated in the published article. Case reports and review articles do not normally require ethical approval, but case reports need patient consent. Retrospective ethics approval is not normally acceptable without a detailed explanation of why it could not be obtained in advance.

Research with human participants

The journal will not publish research that infringes the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Authors should state whether the procedures followed the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation, institutional and national, and the Declaration of Helsinki as revised in 2013. Informed consent to take part in a study should be obtained in advance. If there is doubt about compliance with the Declaration, authors must explain their approach and show that the ethics committee explicitly approved the doubtful aspects.

Patient privacy and consent for publication

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Identifying information, including names, initials, hospital numbers, photographs and pedigrees, must not be published unless it is essential for scientific purposes and the patient, or the parent or guardian, gives written informed consent for publication. The patient should be shown the manuscript to be published, and told whether identifiable material may be available online as well as in print. Written consent should be kept by the authors or the journal, as local law requires, and the published article should state that consent was obtained. Non-essential identifying details should be left out. Masking the eye region in photographs is not adequate protection of anonymity.

Research with animals

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should state whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed. Further guidance is available from the International Association of Veterinary Editors' Consensus Author Guidelines on Animal Ethics and Welfare.

Concerns

If there are concerns about the ethics of a study, the editor may ask the authors for documents, ethics approval or consent forms, and may contact the institution. Serious cases are handled following the COPE guidelines. See also our Publishing Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.