ICMJE recommendations

Last updated

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors Recommendations
Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals
AbbreviationICMJE Recommendations
Formation1979
Parent organization
International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)
Vancouver Group (formerly)
Website https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/
Formerly called
Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URMs)

The ICMJE recommendations (full title, "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals") are a set of guidelines produced by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors for standardising the ethics, preparation and formatting of manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals for publication. [1] Compliance with the ICMJE recommendations is required by most leading biomedical journals. Levels of real compliance are subject to debate. [2] As of 9 January 2020, 5570 journals worldwide claim to follow the ICMJE recommendations. [3]

Contents

The recommendations were first issued in 1979 under the title "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" (abbreviated URMs and often shortened to "Uniform Requirements"). [4] After a series of revisions, they were given their current name in 2013. [5]

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) was originally known as the Vancouver Group, after the location of their first meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. As of 2017 members of the ICMJE are: [6]

Citation style

The citation style recommended by the ICMJE Recommendations, which is also known as the Vancouver system, is the style used by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), codified in Citing Medicine .

References are numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text – they are identified by Arabic numerals enclosed in parentheses.

Example of a journal citation:

Manuscripts describing human interventional clinical trials

URM includes a mandate for manuscripts describing human interventional trials to register a trial in a clinical trial registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov) and to include the trial registration ID in the abstract of the article. The URM also requires that this registration is done prior enrolling the first participant. A study of five high impact factor journals (founders of ICMJE) showed that only 89% of published articles (articles published during 2010–2011; about trials that completed in 2008) were properly registered prior enrolling the first participant. [7]

Disclosure of competing interests

The ICMJE also developed a uniform format for disclosure of competing interests in journal articles. [8]

Grey literature

The Uniform Requirements were adapted by the Grey Literature International Steering Committee GLISC for the production of scientific and technical reports included in the wider category of grey literature. These GLISC Guidelines for the production of scientific and technical reports are translated to French, German, Italian and Spanish and are available on the GLISC website .

See also

Related Research Articles

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. ... [It] means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research." The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of the patient, and the best available scientific information to guide decision-making about clinical management. The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scientific misconduct</span> Violation of codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in scientific research

Scientific misconduct is the violation of the standard codes of scholarly conduct and ethical behavior in the publication of professional scientific research. It is violation of scientific integrity: violation of the scientific method and of research ethics in science, including in the design, conduct, and reporting of research.

<i>The BMJ</i> British peer-reviewed medical journal

The BMJ is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, published by BMJ Group, which in turn is wholly-owned by the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMJ has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Previously called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988, and then changed to The BMJ in 2014. The journal is published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, a subsidiary of the British Medical Association (BMA). The current editor-in-chief of The BMJ is Kamran Abbasi, who was appointed in January 2022.

In scientific writing, IMRAD or IMRaD is a common organizational structure. IMRaD is the most prominent norm for the structure of a scientific journal article of the original research type.

A technical report is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and conclusions of the research. Unlike other scientific literature, such as scientific journals and the proceedings of some academic conferences, technical reports rarely undergo comprehensive independent peer review before publication. They may be considered as grey literature. Where there is a review process, it is often limited to within the originating organization. Similarly, there are no formal publishing procedures for such reports, except where established locally.

In medicine, a case report is a detailed report of the symptoms, signs, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of an individual patient. Case reports may contain a demographic profile of the patient, but usually describe an unusual or novel occurrence. Some case reports also contain a literature review of other reported cases. Case reports are professional narratives that provide feedback on clinical practice guidelines and offer a framework for early signals of effectiveness, adverse events, and cost. They can be shared for medical, scientific, or educational purposes.

The Vancouver system, also known as Vancouver reference style or the author–number system, is a citation style that uses numbers within the text that refer to numbered entries in the reference list. It is popular in the physical sciences and is one of two referencing systems normally used in medicine, the other being the author–date, or "Harvard", system. Vancouver style is used by MEDLINE and PubMed.

Asim Kurjak is the President of International Academy of Perinatal Medicine and director of Ian Donald Inter-University School of Medical Ultrasound. He is a regular fellow of World Academy of Art and Science, European Academy of Sciences and Art, International Academy for Human Reproduction, Italian Academy of Science and Art of Reggio Puglia, Academy of Medical Sciences of Catalonia; honorary member of American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology; regular member of Russian Academy of Science and Art.

Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) encompasses various initiatives developed by the CONSORT Group to alleviate the problems arising from inadequate reporting of randomized controlled trials. It is part of the larger EQUATOR Network initiative to enhance the transparency and accuracy of reporting in research.

Academic authorship of journal articles, books, and other original works is a means by which academics communicate the results of their scholarly work, establish priority for their discoveries, and build their reputation among their peers.

The STROBE(STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology) Statement is a reporting guideline including a checklist of 22 items that are considered essential for good reporting of observational studies. It was published simultaneously in several leading biomedical journals in October and November 2007 and comprises both the checklist and an explanation and elaboration article which gives examples of good reporting and provides authors with more guidance on good reporting. It is also referred to in the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and is endorsed by hundreds of biomedical journals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical journalism</span>

Medical journalism is news reporting of medical news and features. Medical journalism is diverse and reflects its audience. The main division is into (1) medical journalism for the general public, which includes medical coverage in general news publications and in specialty medical publications, and (2) medical journalism for doctors and other professionals, which often appears in peer-reviewed journals.

Medical ghostwriters are employed by pharmaceutical companies and medical-device manufacturers to produce apparently independent manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, conference presentations and other communications. Physicians and other scientists are paid to attach their names to the manuscripts as though they had authored them. The named authors may have had little or no involvement in the research or writing process.

The Grey Literature International Steering Committee (GLISC) was established in 2006 after the 7th International Conference on Grey Literature (GL7) held in Nancy (France) on 5–6 December 2005.

The Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health research Network is an international initiative aimed at promoting transparent and accurate reporting of health research studies to enhance the value and reliability of medical research literature. The EQUATOR Network is hosted by the University of Oxford, and was established with the goals of raising awareness of the importance of good reporting of research, assisting in the development, dissemination and implementation of reporting guidelines for different types of study designs, monitoring the status of the quality of reporting of research studies in the health sciences literature, and conducting research relating to issues that impact the quality of reporting of health research studies. The Network acts as an "umbrella" organisation, bringing together developers of reporting guidelines, medical journal editors and peer reviewers, research funding bodies, and other key stakeholders with a mutual interest in improving the quality of research publications and research itself. The EQUATOR Network comprises five centres at the University of Oxford, Bond University, Paris Descartes University, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and Hong Kong Baptiste University.

Scholarly peer review or academic peer review is the process of having a draft version of a researcher's methods and findings reviewed by experts in the same field. Peer review is widely used for helping the academic publisher decide whether the work should be accepted, considered acceptable with revisions, or rejected for official publication in an academic journal, a monograph or in the proceedings of an academic conference. If the identities of authors are not revealed to each other, the procedure is called dual-anonymous peer review.

Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers is the style guide of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM). Its main focus is citation style and bibliographic style. The citation style of Citing Medicine is the current incarnation of the Vancouver system, per the References > Style and Format section of the ICMJE Recommendations. Citing Medicine style is the style used by MEDLINE and PubMed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conflicts of interest in academic publishing</span>

Conflicts of interest (COIs) often arise in academic publishing. Such conflicts may cause wrongdoing and make it more likely. Ethical standards in academic publishing exist to avoid and deal with conflicts of interest, and the field continues to develop new standards. Standards vary between journals and are unevenly applied. According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, "[a]uthors have a responsibility to evaluate the integrity, history, practices and reputation of the journals to which they submit manuscripts".

Virginia M. Barbour is a professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and serves as the Director of the Australasian Open Access Strategy Group. She is best known for being one of the three founding editors of PLOS Medicine, and her various roles in championing the open access movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clinical Trials Registry – India</span> Indias clinical trial registry

Clinical Trials Registry – India (CTRI) is the government of India's official clinical trial registry. The National Institute of Medical Statistics of the Indian Council of Medical Research established the CTRI on 20 July 2007. Since 2009 the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation has mandated that anyone conducting clinical trials in India must preregister before enrolling any research participants.

References

  1. ICMJE (16 December 2014), Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (PDF).
  2. Dal-Ré, Rafael; Caplan, Arthur L; Marusic, Ana (23 July 2019). "Editors' and authors' individual conflicts of interest disclosure and journal transparency. A cross-sectional study of high-impact medical specialty journals". BMJ Open. 9 (7): e029796. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-029796. ISSN   2044-6055. PMC   6661703 . PMID   31340971.
  3. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Journals that have Requested Inclusion on the List of Publications that follow the ICMJE's Uniform Requirements For Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals [homepage on the Internet]. Philadelphia: ICMJE; c2005 [updated 27 May 2006; cited 30 May 2006]. Available from: http://www.icmje.org/journals.html
  4. "Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. International Steering Committee of Medical Editors" (PDF). BMJ. 1 (6162): 532–535. 1979. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.6162.532 . PMC   1598112 . PMID   444872 . Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  5. "Archives The ICMJE" . Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  6. "ICMJE Membership". International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
  7. Huser, V.; Cimino, J. J. (2013). "Evaluating adherence to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' policy of mandatory, timely clinical trial registration". Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. 20 (e1): e169–174. doi:10.1136/amiajnl-2012-001501. PMC   3715364 . PMID   23396544.
  8. Drazen JM, Van der Weyden MB, Sahni P, Rosenberg J, Marusic A, Laine C, Kotzin S, Horton R, Hébert PC, Haug C, Godlee F, Frizelle FA, de Leeuw PW, DeAngelis CD (November 2009). "Uniform format for disclosure of competing interests in ICMJE journals". The New England Journal of Medicine. 361 (19): 1896–1897. doi: 10.1056/NEJMe0909052 . PMID   19825973.