Aims and Access: Medical Science Monitor is published continually as an electronic journal. It is an international, peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes original articles in basic medical research, clinical research, and biomedical disciplines, including epidemiology, public health, and medical technology.
Indexing: Journal Citation Reports (JCR)/Clarivate, Web of Science (Clinical Medicine), SCI-Expanded, NLM/PubMed and PubMed Central, Index Medicus/MEDLINE, CiteScore in SCOPUS, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Chemical Abstracts Services (CAS), BIOSIS Previews, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), BIOBASE, and Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP).
Ethical Approval for Original Research Articles: All original research articles require completion and submission of an authorized institutional Ethics Committee approval form, or Institutional Review Board (IRB) form, or independent Ethics Committee (IEC) form, or an Ethical Review Board (ERB) form, or Research Ethics Board (REB) form.
Research Involving Human Subjects: All studies involving human participants must be conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Research studies involving human subjects must be reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) before being conducted. The primary purpose of the IRB is to safeguard the rights and welfare of human participants involved in research. While the specific criteria for IRB certification may vary slightly among institutions or countries, the following types of research often necessitate IRB approval:
Biomedical Research: This category encompasses studies involving medical procedures, interventions, drugs, devices, or biological samples obtained from human participants. It includes clinical trials, genetic research, studies on new treatments, and disease investigations. It is important to ensure that any human-related elements, such as data or samples, are handled ethically and with appropriate consent. In cases where human-derived materials (e.g., tissue samples) contain identifiable private information, IRB approval may be necessary to protect participant privacy and confidentiality.
Clinical Research: This category involves direct interaction with human participants or their identifiable private information, including access to patients' medical records. It encompasses studies investigating medical procedures, interventions, drugs, devices, or behavioral aspects of human health. IRB approval is typically required for clinical research due to the direct involvement of human subjects and the need to access sensitive medical information. Whether the study focuses on diagnostics, treatments, or behavioral interventions, IRB review is necessary to protect participant rights, privacy, safety, and welfare. This includes obtaining informed consent, implementing appropriate data management and privacy protocols, safeguarding the confidentiality of medical records, and mitigating potential risks associated with the study.
Social and Behavioral Research: This category includes research in fields such as psychology, sociology, education, anthropology, economics, and political science. It involves surveys, interviews, observations, and experiments that involve human participants.
Research with Identifiable Private Information: Studies that involve collecting, accessing, or analyzing data containing identifiable private information about individuals, such as medical records, employment records, or educational records, will likely require IRB certification.
Research with Sensitive Topics: Studies exploring sensitive or controversial topics, such as sexual behavior, substance abuse, mental health, or illegal activities, may necessitate IRB review due to potential risks to participants or the need for confidentiality.
Vulnerable Populations: Research involving vulnerable populations, such as children, prisoners, pregnant women, individuals with cognitive impairments, or economically disadvantaged individuals, often requires special consideration and may require IRB certification. The Editors may request written evidence that informed consent has been obtained.
Patient Confidentiality: Data analysis, the presentation of results, and figure images should not include confidential details that breach patient confidentiality. If data from deceased individuals is used in research studies, the legal representative or next-of-kin should provide written informed consent.
Research Involving Experimental Animals: All animal studies should be conducted according to local and international guidelines for animal care and welfare and the use of humane methods of euthanasia. Submission of an authorized Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) form is required for all animal studies. Please upload this form to the Medical Science Monitor system with your submission files. Manuscripts without the required IACUC form will not be considered for publication. If the IACUC approval is in a language other than English, please submit an English translation, signed by the Corresponding Author, in addition to the original authorization form.
Requirements of the Corresponding Author: One Corresponding Author should provide their full name, institutional address, e-mail address, and telephone number. The Corresponding Author has primary responsibility for communication with the Editorial Office during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. The Corresponding Author is required to provide all details of authorship, ethics committee approvals, conflicts of interest forms and statements, and other supporting documents required by the Editorial Office. The Corresponding Author must be available throughout the process and promptly respond to Editorial queries. The Corresponding Author is required to communicate with all authors at each stage of the publication process. The Corresponding Author must confirm that the study was conducted ethically and submit all ethical approval forms.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the copying or duplicating of previously published written content and is considered as research fraud and a breach of publication copyright. Therefore, all manuscripts undergo electronic scanning by several methods at all stages of manuscript submission, peer review, and revision. If the authors have previously published a study as an Abstract from a meeting presentation, they are requested to declare this. Self-plagiarism from previous publications, including an Abstract, is unacceptable, and all content should be re-written and not copied. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, detected at any stage will result in the rejection of the manuscript, and all paid processing fees will be forfeited.
Conflict of Interest: When submitting a manuscript, all authors should disclose any commercial or financial interests they may have with a study, a product, or a medical device.
Permissions and Copyright Approvals for the Use of Figures, Data, and Personal Communications: The use of previously published images, diagrams, tables, and data requires written copyright permission from the original publisher. It is the duty of the authors to obtain copyright permission to duplicate any previously published content. The use of unpublished personal communications should be accompanied by a written statement from the source that allows the communication to be published in Medical Science Monitor.
Open Access under a Creative Commons License: Medical Science Monitor has adopted the Open Access publishing model. All publications are under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivatives 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). A Creative Commons License allows others to download and share articles only if they acknowledge the authors and the publisher, but without permission to change them in any way or use them commercially.
Disclaimer: Every effort is made by the Publisher and the Editorial Board to ensure that no inaccurate or misleading data, opinions, or statements appear in the Medical Science Monitor. However, the data and opinions appearing in the publications are the responsibility of the authors and their institutions. Accordingly, the Publisher and Editorial Board of Medical Science Monitor accepts no liability whatsoever for the consequences of any such inaccurate or misleading data, opinion, or statement. Readers of Medical Science Monitor are advised that drug doses, drug regimens, and any medical treatments that form part of a published study should not replace current local or national clinical guidelines or prescribing recommendations.
