The publication of ethically uncertain research: attitudes and practices of journal editors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Publication of ethically uncertain research occurs despite well-published guidelines set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Helsinki. Such guidelines exist to aide editorial staff in making decisions regarding ethical acceptability of manuscripts submitted for publication, yet examples of ethically suspect and uncertain publication exist. Our objective was to survey journal editors regarding practices and attitudes surrounding such dilemmas.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The Editor-in-chief of each of the 103 English-language journals from the 2005 Abridged Index Medicus list publishing original research were asked to complete a survey sent to them by email between September-December 2007.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A response rate of 33% (n = 34) was obtained from the survey. 18% (n = 6) of respondents had published ethically uncertain or suspect research within the last 10 years. 85% (n = 29) of respondents stated they would always reject ethically uncertain articles submitted for publication on ethical grounds alone. 12% (n = 4) of respondents stated they would approach each submission on a case-by-case basis. 3% (n = 1) stated they would be likely to publish such research, but only with accompanying editorial. Only 38% (n = 13) give reviewers explicit instruction to reject submissions on ethical grounds if found wanting.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Editorial compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki in rejecting research that is conducted unethically was difficult to ascertain because of a poor response rate despite multiple attempts using different modalities. Of those who did respond, the majority do reject ethically suspect research but few explicitly advise reviewers to do so. In this study editors did not take advantage of the opportunity to describe their support for the rejection of the publication of unethical research.</p

Comparison of the Accuracy of Bibliographical References Generated for Medical Citation Styles by EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks and Zotero

Bibliographical references to online and printed articles, books, contributions to edited books and web resources generated by EndNote, Mendeley, RefWorks and Zotero were compared with manually written references according to the citation instructions in 15 biomedical journals and the NLM citation style. The fewest mistakes were detected in references generated by Zotero for 11 journals and the NLM style, while the second fewest number of mistakes was found in Mendeley. The largest number of mistakes for 9 journals was found in references generated by EndNote and in the other 4 journals the largest number of mistakes was detected in RefWorks references. With regard to the individual types of resources, the lowest number of mistakes was shown by Zotero, while RefWorks had the greatest number of mistakes. All programs had problems especially with generating the URL and the date of access in the reference to online documents. It was also found that several mistakes were caused by technical limitations of the reference managers, while other mistakes originated due to incorrect setting of the citation styles. A comparison showed that Zotero and Mendeley are the most suitable managers

Burnout within forensic psychiatric nursing:Its relationship with ward environment and effective clinical supervision?

4.1 Introduction Despite extensive research examining burnout in psychiatric nursing staff, literature exploring key predictors of burnout in secure psychiatric settings has been relatively neglected. Research has yet to explore burnout in these settings by adopting previously identified predictors such as support or the ward environment. 4.2 Aim The current study aimed to reduce this gap by exploring burnout, the perceived effectiveness of clinical supervision and ward environment. 4.3 Method In 2014, nursing staff working in a medium secure forensic psychiatric unit in the United Kingdom (N = 137) provided demographic information and completed the measures assessing: Burnout, clinical supervision and the ward environment. 4.4 Results Approximately 10% of nursing staff could be classed as “burnt‐out”. The main predictors of burnout were age and ward environment. Clinical supervision had minimal association with burnout. 4.5 Discussion The current study sheds doubt on clinical supervision as a potential intervention for burnout and results appear comparable to research within other settings. The implications of the ward environment, supervision and burnout are discussed herein. 4.6 Implication for Practice Interventions may need to focus on a positive ward environment (including patient cohesion, experienced safety and enhancing the therapeutic atmosphere). Organizations should support younger nursing staff as they appear particularly vulnerable to burnout

Requisitos de Uniformidad para los manuscritos enviados a revistas biomédicas: escritura y proceso editorial para la publicación de trabajos biomédicos

Este documento es una traducción al castellano de los ICMJE Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals realizada por la Dra. Ana M. García, miembro del Equipo Editorial de la revista Gaceta Sanitaria, con el apoyo de dicha revista y del Instituto de Salud Carlos III. El Comité Internacional de Editores de Revistas Médicas no ha revisado ni aprobado los contenidos de esta traducción. La versión oficial de los Requisitos de Uniformidad está disponible en www.icmje.or