ETHICAL POLICY

Ethical approval for research:

As described by Helsinki Declaration, the authors are required to declare if their experiments involving human subjects were conducted in accordance with the best ethical standards in place. It is important to note that the use of any information that can lead to the identification of human subjects is strictly prohibited. Likewise, reports of experiments should state the institutional or national standards that were followed during experiments. Manuscripts submitted to the FUJRS should be accompanied by an approval from the ethics committee/ethical review board of the institution where the study was carried out. In conditions where no ethical approval was required for the study, a statement explaining the situation countersigned by the head of the department should be submitted.

Retrospective Ethical Approval:

If a study has not been granted ethics committee approval prior to commencing, retrospective ethics approval usually cannot be obtained, and it may not be possible to consider the manuscript for peer review. The decision on whether to proceed to peer review in such cases is at the Editor-in-chief's discretion.

Informed Consent:

Informed consent should be obtained from the patients as patients have a right to privacy and utmost care should be exercised to not violate their privacy. The latest version of Helsinki Declaration can be followed as a useful guide for ethical standards involving informed consent and FUJRS follows the guideline provided by the ICMJE as far as the rights of patients are concerned. All information that can be used to identify the patients like their initials, names, or hospital record number should be omitted from the written or photographic material unless its inclusion can be justified and/or the patient or the parents/guardians of the patient consented to the inclusion in writing. Although it is not required at the time of submission of the manuscript but can be asked at any stage of processing and should be mentioned in the methodology section of the manuscript.

Patient Confidentiality:

FUJRS will ensure that a patient's right to privacy has not been infringed without prior consent. For the publication of material that contains detailed patient information about a living individual, it is compulsory for a signed patient consent to be obtained. Any identifier that might reveal a patient’s identity will be removed (i.e., x-rays, MRIs, charts, photographs, etc.). Written informed consent is required from any potentially identifiable patient or legal representative and will be presented in either the Methods section or the Acknowledgements.

Clinical Trial Registration:

FUJRS will only consider the publication of results of those randomized controlled trials which have been conducted according to the ICMJE instructions. The clinical trials which are unregistered and/or which have recruited participants before registration of the trial will be published at the discretion of the editor.

Registration of Systematic Reviews:

FUJRS supports the prospective registration of systematic reviews and encourages authors to register their systematic reviews in a suitable registry (such as PROSPERO). Authors who have registered their systematic review should include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

Acknowledgments:

Contributors who do not meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship, but helped in the study, may be listed in the acknowledgment section. These may be named, and their function or contribution should be defined. Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission from the person acknowledged by name.

Disclosure of Research Funding:

FUJRS requires disclosure of all funds and grants received for the purpose of completion of the research. These disclosures can be made at the end of the manuscript after the declaration of conflict of interest. In case of no external funding sources are used, the authors should declare this in their manuscript.