As per policy, the editorial board ensures that all manuscripts published in IMJ should be based upon morally acceptable research. The IMJ ensure that whether the authors has followed the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki during research of in preparation of their manuscript. In this regard, the IMJ aims to appraise the ethical aspects of any type of submitted work that involves human participants and whatever descriptive label is given to that work including research, audit, and sometimes debate. This policy of IMJ has been developed with the help and advice of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Isra University Islamabad Campus, Islamabad.

Ethical Approval letter: IMJ policy focuses on the mandatory IRB or Ethical Review Board (ERB)  approval letter at the time of submission of the manuscript. The letter should have a reference number, with a clear date, and countersigned by the chairman IRB/ERB. For papers sourced from FCPS Dissertations, in addition to obtaining synopsis approval from RTMC of CPSP, approval from the institutional ethics committee is also required to address ethical concerns. If there is no intervention, a waiver certificate can be acquired from the IRB/ ERB. Waiver certificate should be provided by IRB committee signed by chairman with clear number and date

Appraisal of Ethical Issues: Editorial appraisal of ethical issues goes beyond simply deciding whether participants in a study gave informed consent although this is, of course, one very important issue to consider. Editors used to judge whether the overall design and conduct of each piece of work are morally justifiable or not, by following questions:

• How much does this deviate from current normal (accepted, local) clinical practice?
• What is the (additional) burden imposed on the patients (or others)?
• What (additional) risks are posed to the patients (or others)?
• What benefit might accrue to the patients (or others)?
• What are the potential benefits to society (future patients)?

• In case of editor’s apprehensions, and IRB/ERB approval, editors have the right to ask from authors more detailed information about their work like:

• How they justified the ethical and moral basis of the work
• To provide the contact details of the research ethics committee that reviewed the work, so that the journal can request further information and justification from that committee
• To explain what ethical issues they considered and how they justified their work, for studies that have not been reviewed by research ethics committees or institutional review boards

Editors may ask other editorial colleagues to evaluate the ethical aspects of an article, the authors’ comments, and the response of the relevant research ethics committee to the journal’s queries about ethics approval in light of COPE protocols.

What happens when the journal considers a study to be unethical?  The IMJ believe that editors have a duty to take on issues of unethical audit or research, not to seek punishment for the authors, but to prevent unethical practice and to protect patients. In that case, the manuscript will be rejected by IMJ. 

Exceptional circumstances:  In rare instances the journal might publish an article despite ethics problems in the work it reported. The usual reason would be that work done in one setting might not reach the ethical standard of work done in another setting, because of differing local resources and standards for health care and research. In deciding to publish such an article, we would consider carefully the context of the study and aim to balance the overall benefit to society against the possible harm to the research participants. 

Manuscripts will be considered for publication only if the work described following points:

• It follows international, national and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals and complies with relevant legislation
• It has been approved by the ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).
• Ethical approval of research involving animals: Even for animal studies, IRB/ERB approval letter will be a mandatory requirement at the time of submission of manuscript.

Before a manuscript can be accepted, authors must:

• Confirm that legal and ethical requirements have been met with regards to the humane treatment of animals described in the study
• Specify in the Materials or Methods section the ethical review committee approval process and the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines followed.
• Editors retain the right to reject manuscripts on the basis of ethical or animal welfare concerns.

Updated March 2, 2022