There will be a conflict of interest in a particular manuscript when a participant in the process of drafting, reviewing and publishing it (author, reviewer or editor) has links to activities that may inappropriately influence their judgment, regardless of whether that judgment was or not affected. The most common conflict of interest resides in financial relationships, personal relationships, academic rivalry, or intellectual passion.
Peers acting as external reviewers should disclose to editors any conflict of interests that could bias their views on the manuscript and should be excused from reviewing it if they consider it appropriate.
Editors will be informed of the reviewers’ conflicts of interest in order to interpret their reports and judge for themselves if they should be disqualified.
Reviewers should not use their reading of the work to further their own interests, before the manuscript is published.
When authors submit a manuscript for publication, they are responsible for recognizing and declaring their financial connections and any other conflicts of interest that could bias their work.
The editors who make final decisions on the manuscripts can not have financial or personal commitments with any of the authors and works that will judge.
The members of the editorial committee who participate in the final decisions on the manuscripts, must provide an updated description of their own financial interests (which could affect their editorial judgments) and be excluded from any decision in which they may have a conflict of interest.
All authors must fill out and submit to the journal the Compulsory Conflicts of Interest Dissemination Form of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). This interactive spreadsheet will help each author to determine in a particular form if there is a conflict of interest.