Publication Ethics

Reliable scientific publishing relies upon internationally accepted ethical principles and policies. All research studies published in The Journal of Turkish Family Physician must have been conducted according to international and local guidelines ensuring research and publication ethics. TJTFP follows for the authors and the editors the international standards of the guidelines prepared by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The submitted manuscripts are attentively controlled for plagiarism, inaccurate citation or other manipulations such as fraud, distortion, republication, slicing, inaccurate authorship, lack of acknowledgement of individuals, institutions that provided support to the work, use of a thesis or unpublished study without the permission, false information. The Journal of Turkish Journal of Family Physician does not charge fees for publishing an article (APCs).

Ethic Approval

All research studies on humans (individuals, samples or data) must have been performed in accordance with the principles stated in the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval must have been obtained prior to starting the study, from the local institutional review board or other appropriate ethics committee to confirm the study meets national and international guidelines for research on humans.

A statement must be included within the manuscript, which must provide details of the name of the ethics committee and reference/permit numbers where available. A copy of the ethic committee approval must be added during the submission of the manuscript.

Participant/patient privacy and informed consent

Turkish Family Physician endorses the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE) which emphasize the right to privacy of the study patients/participants. that patients and study participants have a right to privacy that could not be assured without informed consentInformed consent must be voluntarily obtained from the participant who should be fully informed of the study including any of the benefits and risks involved. A statement must be included within the manuscript, which must provide details of the informed consent.A copy of the informed consent form must be added during the submission of the clinical case reports.

Conflict of Interest 
Conflict of interest is defined as any potential interest that may influence decision-making. Conflict can occur through financial, commercial, legal, personal, professional relationships with other organizations, or with the people working with them that can provide a financial or personal benefit.

The credibility of the journal, the scientific reliability of the published articles are directly related to the objective consideration of conflicts of interest during the planning, realization, writing, evaluation, editing, and publication of scientific studies. To provide an independent and impartial process, any conflicts of interest between authors, reviewers, or other parties must be disclosed and managed appropriately by the publication team.

Author(s) must declare any competing interest and any relationship which can be perceived by others as a competing interest related to the submission and publication of their study by fulfilling the conflict-of-interest form. The JTFP’s Conflict of Interest Form is designed by taking reference International Committee Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) conflict of interest form. (https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest )

Editors and peer reviewers should consider impartially potential conflicts of interest and avoid engaging in any activity that could be questionable and should report and relationship that could be perceived as a conflict. The editors should avoid any personal, professional or financial relationship which may impact their decision making.

Appeals and Complaints 

The Journal of Turkish Family Physician follows Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines on appeals to journal editor decisions and complaints about a journal’s editorial management of the peer review process. Evidence and/or new data/information is needed for the evaluation of the appeal. An author who wishes to comment or complaint on the journal’s editorial management can Contact Us.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Authors

• The author(s) may not submit their manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously which must be stated and signed in their application form during submission process.
• Original studies originally performed by the author(s) are accepted for publication.
• Substantial intellectual contribution to the content of the work allows to be cited as an author of the manuscript. Other contributors are cited in the acknowledgements part of the article.
• The details of ethical approval and all the permissions should be explained inside the Methods section of the manuscript.
• Conflict of interest must be declared and explained inside the manuscript.
• Numeric and nominal data and other material used in the study should be stored by the author(s) ready to be provided upon request in-order-to verify the reliability of the study.
• If an error is noticed during the publication process or even after publication the author(s) have the responsibility to inform the journal.
• Previously published articles are not accepted.
• Translations are not accepted unless the appropriate acknowledgement of the original author is provided.
• Changes in authorship designation (adding or removing author(s), changing the order of author names) will not be accepted once the manuscript has been accepted for publication; in such case all the authors approval and the editor’s consent are requested.
• Acknowledgements (if any), potential conflict of interest or no conflict of interest, the ethics committee approval (institution, date and protocol number), in case presentations, the information about the consent form was signed and participation rate of the authors/researchers must be added at the end of the text.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Editors

• The editor must confirm publishing policies and ethical and technical standards are assured.
• The editor must be objective and fair during the review and publication process, and avoid any discrimination based on gender, religion, politics, ethnic or geographical origin, sponsorship, or other influence for all submissions.
• The editor must be the protector of intellectual property and must defend the rights of the journal and author(s).
• The editor must be objective to investigate any complaint or appeal request coming from the author(s), editor(s) and the readers.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Reviewers

• The reviewer must evaluate the manuscripts with an objective and independent approach.
• The reviewer must accept to evaluate studies related to their specialty and be timely to return the review in the designated deadline.
• The reviewer must be objective and fair during the review and publication process, and avoid any discrimination based on gender, religion, politics, ethnic or geographical origin or other influence.
• The reviewer must refuse to any work in case of a potential conflict of interest and must inform the journal editor.
• The reviewer must be confidential for any information about the reviewed manuscript.
• The reviewer must use an objective and constructive language in their comments, respectful to the author’s rights.
• Acknowledgements (if any), potential conflict of interest or no conflict of interest, the ethics committee approval (institution, date and protocol number), in case presentations, the information about the consent form was signed and participation rate of the authors/researchers must be added at the end of the text.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

• The publisher must act in cooperation and collaboration with the editor and the editorial board for the development and sustainability of the publication quality.
• The publisher must pursue the ethical principles and publication policies adopted by the journal management.
• The publisher must recognize the importance of the preservation and storage of the published issues, the archive of the journal.

Plagiarism is defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as “the presentation of the work of others as if they were his/her own and without proper acknowledgment.”. The data, images, expressions, or ideas taken from any electronic or printed material are included in this context. Intentional or not plagiarism is the violation of ethics. The source of all textual quotations should be appropriately cited inside the text.

The Journal of Turkish Family Physician takes the issue of plagiarism very seriously, detect all the submitted manuscript by Turnitin and iThenticate as checker software programs before starting the reviewer process. The report is sent for editorial auditing to decide for a revision or rejection of the manuscript when necessary. The acceptance of the study is on the initiative of the editorial board.

TJTFP is an Open Access journal that does not charge any submission, article processing, publishing or page fees. Published articles are immediately and easily accessible by all the readers through all digital platforms for free, used with scientific purposes as long as the author and the original source are appropriately cited.

The Journal of Turkish Family Physician endorses Budapest Open Access Initiative principles that defines free access to academic literature on the internet, giving the users the opportunity to read, record, copy, print, search, or link to the full text, examine them for indexing, use them as data for software or other lawful purposes without financial, legal, or technical barriers. (https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org)
(http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/boai-10-translations/turkish-translation)

The articles published in The Journal of Turkish Family Physician are licensed under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)”. This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator; enables the reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0)

The articles published in The Journal of Turkish Family Physician are licensed under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)” which gives permission to the author/s to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format with other than commercial purposes, as well as remix, transform and build upon the material, providing appropriate credit to the original work. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).

The author(s) upon submission wet sign Copyright Agreement Form as a publishing agreement between the author(s) and the Journal. The authors retain the copyright of their work licensed under the “Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)” and grant the publisher non-exclusive commercial right to publish the work. This form takes effect upon acceptance for publication.

The Journal of Turkish Family Physician does not charge any fees for submission, processing or publishing an article (APCs or Publication Fees) or page charges.