Retraction Notice

NOTICE OF RETRACTION FOR: ABDULSALAM ET AL. DIABETES-RELATED KNOWLEDGE AND PREVENTATIVE PRACTICES AMONG GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES WITH DIABETES IN KUWAIT. SULTAN QABOOS UNIV MED J 2017; 17:e444–51. DOI: 10.18295/SQUMJ.2017.17.04.011.

The Editors of Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal (SQUMJ), in association with the authors, have retracted the above article by Abdulsalam et al. which appeared in the November 2017 issue of SQUMJ.1 The article was retracted because the Editors were informed by the first and corresponding author that the authors did not have the necessary ethical approval to conduct the study.

In the article published in the November 2017 issue of SQUMJ, the ethical approval statement affirmed that “This study was approved by the Kuwait Ministry of Health and the Ethical Committee of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research”. However, in May 2018, the Editors were informed by the first and corresponding author that, upon retrospective investigation, the appropriate ethical approval procedures had not been undertaken and ethical permission had not been granted by the Kuwait Ministry of Health or the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. In accordance with the recommendations and guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the Committee on Publication Ethics, this constitutes grounds for retraction of the published article.2,3

For the reasons stated herein, the Editors of SQUMJ wish to notify readers that the above article is retracted.1 The authors have agreed to the publication of this notice and apologise sincerely to both the Editors and readers of SQUMJ for any inconvenience caused. The authors take joint responsibility for this notice as well as for the publication of research lacking ethical approval.