Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care

Ethical Principles

Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC) is based on the criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which have been prepared as guidelines for authors, reviewers and editors.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Author

Author(s) submitting manuscripts to Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC) are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:

The work submitted by the authors is expected to be original. In case the author(s) utilize or have utilized other works, they are required to provide complete and accurate citations or include clearly indicated citations.
Individuals who did not contribute intellectually to the content of the study should not be listed as authors.
If applicable, all studies submitted for publication should disclose any situations and relationships that may constitute a conflict of interest.
During the review process, the author(s) may be requested to provide data outputs related to his/her article and in such a case, the author(s) should be ready to provide the expected data and information to the Editorial Board. Authors are required to keep the data related to a published article for 5 years.
The author(s) must have documentation showing that they have the rights to use the data used, the necessary permissions for the research/analyses, or the consent of the subjects on whom the experiment was conducted.
In the event that the author(s) notices an error or inaccuracy in the manuscript at the early review stage, he/she should inform the journal editor and cooperate with him/her in the revision or retraction process.
Authors cannot keep their work in the submission process of more than one journal. Each submission can be made after the completion of the previous submission process.
Changes in author responsibilities (e.g. adding authors, changing author order, removing authors) cannot be requested for a study for which the evaluation process has started.

Ethical Duties and Responsibilities of the Editor

The editor is required to comply with the ethical responsibilities listed below in the ‘COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_Mar11.pdf) and ‘COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors’ (https://publicationethics.org/files/u2/Best_Practice.pdf) published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) (https://publicationethics.org/).

The editor is responsible for all articles published in the journal. The ethical duties and responsibilities of the editor are as follows:

General Responsibilities

The editor should strive to contribute to improving and enhancing the quality of the journal.
The editor needs to support the authors’ freedom of expression.

Relations with Readers

The editor should ensure that the sections of the journal where peer review is not required (letters to the editor, invited manuscripts, conference announcements, etc.) are clearly indicated.
The editor should strive to ensure that the articles published in the journal are compatible with the knowledge and skills of the journal’s readers.

Relations with Referees

The editor should ask the reviewers to evaluate articles that are appropriate to their knowledge and expertise. In this way, it should be ensured that the articles are appropriately evaluated by experts in the field.
The editor is obliged to ask reviewers to declare that there are no conflicts of interest before reviewing a manuscript.
The editor is responsible for providing all necessary information to the reviewers about the peer review process and what is expected of the reviewers.
The editor should ensure that the peer review process continues in a double-blind manner and should not disclose reviewers to authors or authors to reviewers.
The editor should evaluate reviewers based on their timeliness and performance.
The editor should create a database of reviewers and update it according to their performance.
The editor should remove reviewers who make rude and unqualified comments or respond late from the list of reviewers.
The editor should constantly renew and expand the list of referees according to their areas of expertise.

Relations with Authors

The editor should continuously update the publication and editorial guidelines and the sample template regarding what is expected of authors.
The editor should evaluate the articles submitted to the journal in terms of the journal’s editorial rules, the importance and originality of the work, and if he/she decides to reject the article at the first submission stage, he/she should clearly and impartially communicate the reason for this to the authors. In this process, if it is decided that the article needs to be revised in terms of grammar, punctuation and/or style and format (margins, proper citation, etc.), the authors should be informed about this and given time to make the necessary corrections.
Articles should include submission and acceptance of publication dates.
Authors should receive information about the status of their manuscript in a way that does not interfere with the double blind review process.

Relations with the Editorial Board

The editor should communicate the rules of publication and writing to the new members of the Editorial Board and explain what is expected of them.
The editor should send the most up-to-date version of the publication and writing rules to the members of the Editorial Board.
The Editor should evaluate the members of the Editorial Board and select editors who will actively participate in the development of the journal.
The Editor should inform the members of the Editorial Board about their roles and responsibilities listed below.

- Supporting the development of the journal

- Writing reviews related to their areas of specialization when requested

- Reviewing and improving publication and writing rules

- Fulfilling the necessary responsibilities in journal management

Ethical Responsibilities of Referees

The quality of publication is directly affected by the evaluation of all manuscripts by “Double Blind Review”. This process provides confidence through objective and independent evaluation of the publication. The review process for Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC) Journal is carried out with the principle of double blind review. Reviewers cannot communicate directly with the authors, and evaluations and comments are transferred through the journal management system. In this process, evaluation forms and reviewer comments on full texts are sent to the author(s) through the editor.

In this context, reviewers evaluating manuscripts for Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC) Journal are expected to have the following responsibilities

They should only agree to evaluate studies related to their area of expertise.
Conduct evaluations with impartiality and confidentiality.
If they think that they face a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, they should refuse to review the study and inform the journal editor.
Due to the principle of confidentiality, they should destroy the studies they have reviewed after the review process. They can only use the final versions of the studies they have reviewed only after they are published.
They should review objectively and only in relation to the content of the study. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial considerations should not be allowed to influence the review process.
The review should be constructive and polite. It should not contain personal derogatory comments that contain hostility, accusations or insults.
They should complete the review of the work they agree to review on time and based on the ethical responsibilities listed above.

In Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC), manuscripts are sent to at least two reviewers who are unaware of each other.

The identifying information about the author(s) in the manuscript file sent by the author is removed and uploaded to the system only on the cover page.

If this information is omitted from the full text, it is removed by the editors and then sent to the referees.

In terms of the publishability of the study, the article may be rejected with the opinion of the editor and deputy editors of the journal at the submission stage.

The manuscripts that are checked for spelling and grammar during the pre-checking process are then forwarded for peer review by the editor.

Case presentations are evaluated and published with the decision of the department editor.

If the article is in a foreign language, it is sent to the language editors of the journal for language editing before peer review.

The period given to the referees for evaluation is 30 days.

Authors are allowed to make changes to their documents in line with the reviewers’ suggestions.

The system does not give authors the right to make changes to their documents before the peer review is completed.

Reviewers can only see the manuscript submitted by the author if they agree to review it.

If any of the reviewers has made a major revision decision for an article that has been peer-reviewed, the editors examine the situation in detail in terms of the degree and applicability of the criticism/revisions and may make a rejection decision at this step if necessary.

After the article is evaluated by both referees, both are sent to the author together.

Referee evaluations are shared with the author in accordance with the blindness system.

Authors are given 4 weeks for minor and major reviewer suggestions.

If the responsible author of the article is informed three times about technical corrections and spelling rules, but the requested correction is not made, the article is removed from the evaluation process and this issue is notified to the author.

Corrections received from the author are checked by the relevant editor.

If one of the referees gives a correction, the corrected manuscript is also sent to the referee who accepted it.

The editor takes all these processes into account and informs the author of his/her absolute decision on publication or rejection.

For all peer-reviewed manuscripts, the referees’ opinions are communicated to the author in accordance with the double-blind system, whether the manuscript is accepted or rejected.

Authors are requested to revise the manuscript by indicating these referees in a separate color for each referee and in the relevant correction text when responding to the referees on the system page.

Informing the Editor of an Unethical Situation

In Perspectives in Palliative & Home Care (PPHC) Journal, editors, reviewers or authors are obliged to report any unethical behavior or unethical situation regarding a manuscript under review, an early appearance or a published manuscript by sending a message to pphc.editorial@gmail.com.

Some behaviors considered against scientific research and publication ethics:

Plagiarism: Presenting the original ideas, methods, data or works of others as one’s own in whole or in part without proper attribution in accordance with scientific rules,
Forgery: The use of non-existent or doctored data in scientific research,
Corruption Modification of research records or data obtained, pretending that devices or materials not used in the research were used, changing or shaping the results of the research in line with the interests of the persons or organizations providing support,
Republishing Presenting duplicate publications as separate publications for academic appointments and promotions,
Salam Slicing: Inappropriately and inappropriately dividing the results of a study into parts in a way that disrupts the integrity of the study, publishing these parts in more than one issue, and presenting these publications as separate publications in academic assignments and promotions,
Unfair authorship: Including people who have not actively contributed or excluding people who have actively contributed, changing the author ranking inappropriately and without a legitimate reason, omitting the names of active contributors in subsequent publications, using one’s influence to include one’s name among the authors when one has not actively contributed,
Failure to disclose the persons, institutions or organizations providing support and their contributions in publications made as a result of studies conducted with support,
Using thesis or studies that have not been presented or defended but not approved as a source without the permission of the author(s),
Failure to comply with ethical rules in studies on humans and animals, failure to respect patient rights in publications, damage to animal health and ecological balance, failure to obtain necessary permissions,
Using the resources, spaces, facilities and devices provided or allocated for scientific research for purposes other than their intended purpose,
Making false or misleading statements regarding scientific research and publications in academic assignments and promotions.