Conflict of Interest

SEEd Medical Publishers require Authors, Reviewers, and Editors to disclose any competing financial interests in relation to manuscript submitted.

Competing interests are defined as those of a financial nature that, through their potential influence on behavior or content or from perception of such potential influences, could undermine the objectivity, integrity or perceived value of a publication. They can include any of the following:

• Funding: research support by organizations that may gain or lose financially through this publication.
• Employment: recent, present or anticipated employment by any organization that may gain or lose financially through this publication.
• Personal financial interests: Stocks or shares in companies that may gain or lose financially through publication; consultation fees or other forms of remuneration from organizations that may gain or lose financially; patents or patent applications whose value may be affected by publication.

Authors

All Authors are required to complete the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest and to return it to the Press Editor.

Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations, should declare these as competing interests on submission. They should also adhere to the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies (GPP3), which are designed to ensure that publications are produced in a responsible and ethical manner. The guidelines also apply to any companies or individuals that work on industry-sponsored publications, such as freelance writers, contract research organizations, communications, and consulting companies.

Editors

The declaration of conflicts of interests of the editorial staff is published yearly.

Peer Reviewers

All Peer Reviewers should declare any conflict of interests upon acceptance to review a manuscript.

Confidentiality

The privacy of patients should be respected. The identification of the patient has to be impossible. If, for scientific reasons, the patient’s identity shouldn’t be disguised, the Authors should require written consent from patients: the document should be at SEEd’s disposal. The Consent Request form should be asked to the editorial staff.

Plagiarism

SEEd Medical Publishers follow the COPE guidelines concerning the handling of plagiarism. Therefore, if a submitted book contains plagiarism, i.e. unattributed use of large portions of text and/or data, presented as if they were by the Author, Press Editors will contact the Authors requiring an explanation. If this is not satisfactory, the Editor may contact the Author’s institution.

Research/Editorial Misconduct

SEEd Medical Publishers handles any research/editorial misconduct in accordance with COPE guidelines.

SEEd Medical Publishers use the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Wherever you see the “Similarity Check Deposited” or “Similarity Check Depositor” logos, you can be reassured that the Publisher whose content you are reading is committed to actively combating plagiarism and publishing original research. View SEEd Medical Publishers’s plagiarism policy above. To find out more about Similarity Check visit www.crossref.org/crosscheck/index.html

Appeals and Complaints

SEEd Medical Publishers adhere to COPE guidelines regarding appeals to editorial decisions and complaints.

Authorship

An 'Author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study. According to the ICMJE guidelines, to qualify as an Author one should have done:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the authored chapter/chapters in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of these parts of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not usually justify authorship.

Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgements’ chapter. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help or writing assistance.

Medical Writers

The involvement of medical writers or anyone else who assisted with the preparation of the manuscript content should be acknowledged, along with their source of funding, as described in the European Medical Writers Association (EMWA) guidelines. The role of medical writers should be acknowledged explicitly in the ‘Acknowledgements’.