Publication Ethics

EDITORIAL STANDARDS

Publication Ethics and Authorship

Scientia Psychiatrica follows the principles of transparency and good editorial practice and uses relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance when addressing suspected misconduct, corrections, retractions, and editorial disputes.

Responsibilities of authors

  • Submit original work that is not under consideration elsewhere.
  • Report methods and findings honestly, accurately, and with sufficient detail.
  • Obtain appropriate ethics approval and informed consent for research involving humans, identifiable information, or animals, and state the approval in the manuscript.
  • Protect participant privacy and provide consent for identifiable case information or images.
  • Disclose funding, competing interests, related manuscripts, preprints, and material use of artificial-intelligence tools.
  • Make underlying data available when ethically and legally possible and provide an appropriate data-availability statement.
  • Notify the journal promptly if a significant error is discovered.

Authorship and contributorship

Authorship is limited to contributors who made substantial contributions to the work, participated in drafting or critical revision, approved the final version, and accept accountability for the publication. All authors must approve the submitted manuscript. Contributors who do not meet authorship criteria should be acknowledged with permission. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Requests to change authorship require a written explanation and agreement from all affected authors.

Responsibilities of editors

Editors make decisions on scholarly merit, methodological quality, ethical compliance, and relevance to scope. They protect confidentiality, maintain editorial independence, manage conflicts of interest, ensure appropriate peer review, and do not use unpublished material for personal advantage. Editors recuse themselves from manuscripts in which they have a conflict.

Responsibilities of reviewers

Reviewers provide timely, objective, evidence-based, and respectful reports; protect manuscript confidentiality; identify relevant uncited work where appropriate; and disclose conflicts or limitations in expertise. Unpublished material must not be used or shared.

Research misconduct

Allegations involving fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, authorship abuse, or peer-review manipulation are assessed confidentially and fairly. The journal may seek explanations, supporting data, ethics documentation, or institutional assistance. Outcomes may include rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or notification of relevant institutions, consistent with the evidence and applicable guidance.

Corrections and retractions

Material errors are corrected transparently through a linked correction notice. Articles may be retracted when findings are unreliable, research is unethical, publication is redundant, or serious misconduct is established. Retraction notices remain freely accessible and identify the reason and responsible party when legally permissible.

Complaints and appeals

Concerns may be sent to scientiapsychiatrica@gmail.com. Complaints and appeals are acknowledged, documented, and considered by a person who was not directly involved whenever practicable. Editorial disagreement alone is not evidence of misconduct.