Table 1.
Journals policies on authors’ conflicts of interest
| 1) The journal has a specific policy on authors’ COI: 20/45 (44 %) |
| If yes: |
| a. Described in the instruction for authors: 19/20 (95 %) |
| b. Described in dedicated forms required for manuscript submission: 12/19 (63 %) |
| 2) The journal provides definition of different types of COI: 6/45 (13 %) |
| 3) The journal provides examples of different COI: 5/45 (11 %) |
| 4) COI are detailed by items and specified according to journal’s definition: 9/45 (20 %) |
| If Yes: |
| a. Financial COI are specifically considered: 8/9 (89 %) |
| b. Non-financial COI are specifically considered: 2/9 (22 %) |
| 5) Editors recommend an “inclusive” policy where all potential COI (even those minor and vaguely related) 1) should be disclosed: 13/44 (30 %) |
| 6) Editors favour a “restrictive” policy where only potential COI that are relevant and directly related to the submitted work, should be disclosed: 19/42 (45 %) |
| 7) Resources from third parties received via the authors’ institution are considered: 8/42 (19 %) |
| 8) Financial relationships involving family members are specified: 4/44 (9 %) |
| 9) COI are just disclosed as free text directly by the authors: 29/40 (73 %) |
| 10) Authors must submit a written attestation of potential COI: 18/44 (41 %) |
| If yes: |
| a. Signature is required only from the corresponding/responsible author:10/18 (55 %) |
| b. Every author should sign the form: 6/18 (33 %) |
| 11) Authors’ COI disclosures apply to “all” submitted articles: 23/44 (52 %) |
| 12) Specific procedures are followed to verify that authors’ COI disclosures are accurate: 6/44 (14 %) |
| 13) Under specific circumstances efforts are made to contact authors owing to concerns about disclosed or undisclosed COI (eg, complaint by reviewers/readers): 27/41 (66 %) |
| 14) Specific policies to deal with authors who fail to disclose COI of published papers: 11/45 (24 %) |
| 15) Specific policies to “restrict” author publication of articles with a stated COI: 10/44 (23 %) |
| 16) The journal “publishes” all the authors’ COI disclosures in all submissions: 13/40 (33 %) |
| 17) The editors decide, on an individual basis, when authors’ COI should be “published”: 23/43 (53 %) |
| 18) If authors’ COI are not published, the information is made available upon request: 21/46 (46 %) |
Data from the 46 journals answering the questionnaire (number of journals answering each question is presented). Not all journals responded to all questions. COI conflicts of interest