Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Authorship and Authors’ Responsibilities

Authorship credit should be based on criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Each author should have made the following contributions towards the completion of the manuscript: 1. Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data 2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content 3. Final approval of the version to be published.
With the submission of the manuscript the corresponding author declares that all named co-authors contributed to the work and have agreed to its publication.

Any conflict of interest must be declared at the time of submitting the manuscript. Economic or personal ties between authors and organizations can lead to a conflict of interest. The disclosure of such ties serves to objectify the process of the publication of articles. To obtain maximum transparency possible ties from the past 3 years are disclosed to the readers. A possible conflict of interest as defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, www.icmje.com) as well as some scientific societies exists if an author has economic or personal ties to enterprises in the health industry (e.g., pharmaceutical products or medical devices industry), commercially-oriented institutions or insurance companies which could be positively or negatively affected by the publication of his/her project. Economic ties include membership on advisory boards, employment relationships, travel expense subsidies, professional fees, ownership of shares or interests, research subsidies or other third party funds. Personal ties exist among other things when ties to someone exists whose economic or intellectual interests are affected by the article (e.g., family ties, partnerships or personal relationships with representatives of an enterprise of the health industry). The membership in specialist societies or professional associations which are affected by the article may also establish a conflict of interest. This shall apply accordingly to particular scientific or personal interests relevant to the article e.g., political, academic (e. g., allegiance to particular “schools”).

The topic must be presented without bias and descriptions given in the manuscript must be neutral and not favour or disparage any product. Please see:
www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/author-responsibilities--conflicts-of-interest.html.

With the submission of a manuscript the authors agree to the guidelines outlined in the journal’s Instructions for Authors. With the acceptance of the manuscript the copyright is transferred to the publisher. The author declares that he/she agrees to the editorial revision of the manuscript (including all images, illustrations, etc.). The editors retain the right to make any necessary changes or cuts to the manuscript after consultation with the author(s).
If any case of misconduct will be detected this will lead to an immediate retraction of the article or in minor cases to a correction in one of the following copies according to the publisher’s guidelines.

Statement on Liability
The legislation on product liability makes increased demands on the duty of care to be exercised by authors of scientific research and medical publications. This applies in particular to papers and publications containing therapeutic directions or instructions and doses or dosage schedules. We therefore request the author to examine with particular care, also in his own interest, the factual correctness of the contents of his manuscript once it has been returned in the form of galley proofs. The responsibility for the correctness of data and statements made in the manuscript rests entirely with the author.

Clinical Trials
Authors should ensure that any research they publish was carried out according to the relevant internationally accepted guidelines e.g. the Declaration of Helsinki for clinical research (www.wma.net), the AERA and BERA guidelines for educational research.
In clinical or experimental studies with human participants, the study protocol must have been approved by the appropriate ethics committee. In the case of animal experiments, the appropriate animal protection regulations should be followed. All animal experiments must be carried out in accordance with the appropriate standards of animal care and welfare and must comply with the Animal Welfare Act.
Clinical Trial reporting should follow the guidance of CONSORT 2010 and accordingly the CONSORT 2010 Statement should be cited (see also www.consort-statement.org /, in particular CONSORT 2010 checklist and CONSORT 2010 Flow Diagram). The journal will only consider papers reporting on clinical trials if the trials have been registered before the start of the study, that is, before enrolment of the first patient. The clinical trial number must be inserted at the end of the abstract. Approved registries are ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov) and the Primary Registries of the WHO Registry Network (please see list on www.who.int/ictrp/network/primary/en/index.html). Registration in other databases is not considered to sufficiently fulfil this condition. Publishers and editors will take every necessary step to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred.

Copyright Statement
Submitted manuscripts must represent original research not previously published nor being considered for publication elsewhere. The editors and the publisher combat plagiarism, double publication, and scientific misconduct. The manuscript may be subject to an investigation and retraction if plagiarism is suspected.
Authors should confirm that they hold all rights of use for every submitted figure and table. We cannot publish any figure or table that has already been published elsewhere or for which we do not receive all necessary rights of use. Authors should not pay any license fees (for example with RightsLink / Copyright Clearance Center). Upon publication of an article, all rights are held by the publisher, including the rights to reproduce all or part of any publication. The reproduction of articles or illustrations without prior written consent by the publisher is prohibited.

Patient Permission Policy
The personal rights of people who are recognizable on images must be protected. Authors should provide written consent for publication by every recognizable person. For persons under 18 years of age / persons supervised authors should provide the signature of both parents / the legal representative / supervisor. A suitable declaration of consent form can be obtained here www.thieme.de/de/autorenlounge/fuer-zeitschriftenautoren-1789.htm .