JOAHM uses iThenticate/Turnitin or equivalent plagiarism detection software. Manuscripts with a similarity index exceeding 20% (excluding the reference list) will be returned to authors for revision without peer review. Self-plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation are grounds for immediate rejection and may be reported to authors' institutions.
Publication Ethics and Standards
Authorship
JOAHM follows the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) criteria for authorship. All listed authors must have:
- Made a substantial contribution to conception, design, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation
- Participated in drafting or critically revising the manuscript for intellectual content
- Given final approval of the version to be published
- Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work
All other contributors who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgements section rather than listed as authors.
Changes to Authorship
Any changes to authorship (addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors) after manuscript submission must be approved by the Editor-in-Chief and require a signed written statement from all current and proposed authors confirming agreement to the change.
Research Ethics
- Studies involving human participants must have received approval from a recognised Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Ethics Committee. The approval number must be stated in the manuscript.
- Informed consent must have been obtained from all human participants, or a waiver of consent appropriately documented.
- Studies involving animals must comply with institutional, national, and international guidelines on the ethical use and care of animals in research.
- All clinical trials must have been prospectively registered in a public trial registry.
Data Integrity
Authors are expected to maintain the integrity of all data reported. Fabrication, falsification, or selective reporting of data are serious breaches of publication ethics and will result in rejection and may be reported to the relevant institutional and professional authorities.
Copyright and Licensing
Authors retain copyright of their work. Upon acceptance, authors are required to sign a non-exclusive licence agreement granting JOAHM the right to publish, distribute, and archive the work. JOAHM operates under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence, allowing non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction with appropriate attribution.
