Editorial Policy

The Translational Perioperative and Pain Medicine (noted as TPPM) follows high standard editorial policies and recommendations adopted from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). This policy was updated on Feb 15th, 2023. It will be updated periodically to reflect the best practice to ensure high quality and science integrity.

Authorship

As per our publication policy, every author's contribution to a published work should be clearly credited.

As stated in the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations, credit for authorship requires:

Substantial contributions to conception and design; or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data
Drafting of the article or critical revision for important intellectual content
Final approval of the version to be published
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the article are appropriately investigated and resolved

Equal contribution from the authors will be indicated in the published paper with symbol "#" or "*". Statement in the title page should be clearly provided: "Drs. XXX and YYY contributed equally to this article." All authors of the article will be clearly mentioned along with the affiliation of each author separately.

Corresponding Authors

TPPM permits co-corresponding authors. However, only one corresponding author will be recognized as the communicating corresponding author for easy communication purposes. This person is solely responsible for all correspondence with the Journal and will receive all emails regarding forms, authorship issues, manuscript files, etc. TPPM editors will speak only with the communicating corresponding author regarding manuscript submissions. However, in the accepted manuscript, authors may designate more than one person to be contacted by readers.

How to define the role of authors and contributors

TPPM recommends that authors review The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors which can be found here: ICMJE Recommendations on Authors and Contributors

Submission of manuscript

Authors are requested to read the "Author Instructions" before making a submission. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the style and specifications of the journal's policy. Complete submission guidelines are explained in the link.

Peer-review

We follow a single-blind review process, where the reviewers are anonymous to the authors, which allows the reviewers to provide an honest and unbiased review. The reviewers are also allowed to send confidential comments to the editors. Such comments will not be sent to the authors. Editors with the help of reviewers make every effort to support the advancement of research and discovery. The Reviewer Instructions are clearly explained in this page (https://tppm.msubmit.net/cgi-bin/main.plex?form_type=display_rev_instructions). In the review process, we consider 2-4 external reviews plus an internal editor review and critiques, with final decisions made by editor-in-chiefs. Additional reviewers may be invited if any conflict in review opinion arises. The editor details on who handled the manuscript from submission till acceptance and publication will be published in the article.

The peer-review process often works to improve research, while preventing overstatements of results from reaching physicians and the public. The Journal’s careful editing process often requires extensive revisions and involves detailed checking for accuracy.

We use eJournalPress to manage submitted manuscripts and the review process.

During peer review, all manuscripts are considered privileged communications. Without prior approval from the TPPM editorial office, peer reviewers are expressly prohibited from:

Copying manuscripts
Sharing with others
Discussing their personal evaluations or recommendations

TPPM also instructs peer reviewers to:

Report immediately any possible personal, professional, or financial conflicts of interest with authors or related to a paper’s topic; where conflicts arise, TPPM editors find substitute reviewers.
Destroy manuscript copies once reviews are complete.

After reviewers finish the review process, the editor communicates a paper’s status to its authors in a letter detailing questions raised in the review process and, where applicable, recommending revisions needed to meet TPPM standards for publication. Authors respond to the editor with a revised manuscript and letter detailing their changes.

When authors resubmit a revised manuscript, the assigned editor again reviews it and decides whether further peer or statistical review is needed and often brings the paper back to the Editor in Chiefs for further discussion.

If additional outside review is not needed, the manuscript will be sent to the Editor in Chiefs for additional editing and revisions in collaboration with the associate editor and its authors.

The assigned Editor-in-Chief reviews the final (revised) submissions and may raise further questions. The assigned Editor-in-Chief is the only person who can officially accept a paper for publication. Following formal acceptance for publication, a paper will then move through rigorous processes for manuscript editing, production, illustration, design, and publication. The initial proof will be sent to authors for accuracy check and error corrections, another round of check of accuracy by the authors will be performed when the article is posted online as an article in the upcoming issue, additional changes can be made at this stage. The final form will be released to the current issue. If any changes are needed at this stage, an erratum will be needed from the authors and the erratum will be published as soon as possible to ensure high standard and science integrity.

Acknowledgments

All contributors who supported the work, but do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an ‘Acknowledgement' section.

Scientific Misconduct, Expressions of Concern

When scientific misconduct is alleged, or concerns are otherwise raised about the conduct or integrity of work described in submitted or published papers, the editor will initiate appropriate procedures detailed by such committees as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), will consider informing the institutions and funders, and may choose to publish an expression of concern pending the outcomes of those procedures.

Plagiarism/Duplicate publication

Any manuscript submitted to the journal must be original and the manuscript, or substantial parts of it, must not be under consideration by any other journal. Authors should declare any potentially overlapping publications on submission. We use Ithenticate to check potential plagiarism.

Correction and retractions

To maintain the quality of published articles, we address any challenges or questions surrounding the work that we publish. Author corrections will be reviewed by the editorial staff and any important error made by an author that affects the publication will be rectified.

In rare situations, when the interpretation or conclusion of an article is substantially undermined, it may be necessary for published articles to be retracted. The article will be retracted with notification to the authors and confirmation of the retraction process.

Confidentiality

We never share manuscripts with third parties or anyone outside of the journal. Reviewers are therefore required to respect the confidentiality of the peer-review process and not reveal any details of a manuscript or its review during the review process.

Advertising Policy

No advertisements are accepted by the journal site.

Research Ethic Policy

The editors should access whether the submitted paper follows the standard Research Ethic Policies. These policies include ethics in human and animal related studies. A statement for human study is needed to indicate that the study is approved by the Internal Review Board. A statement for animal study is needed to indicate that the study is approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

Informed Consent Policy

The editors and reviewer should also check and verify whether the human study needed an informed consent. If there is concern about breach of confidentiality of patients without any informed consent, or any violation of the informed consent policy, a manuscript should be rejected. When an informed consent is available, the specific statement that an informed consent is obtained should be included in the method section of the manuscript.

Identifiable Patients

Authors should remove information from photographs and manuscripts that might identify a patient. Where it is impossible, submissions must be accompanied by a written release from the patient to the journal.

Conflicts of Interest and Financial Disclosures

TPPM is committed to publishing the highest-quality research and reliable, authoritative review articles that are not biased from commercial influence.

For all research articles published in TPPM:

Lists study sponsorship
Conflict of interest statement

A separate disclosure policy applies to review articles and editorials that comment on published articles but do not present new research. The Journal expects that authors of such articles have no significant financial interests in any biomedical company relevant to topics and products discussed in the subject they are reviewing, or the article on which they are commenting. When prospective authors do have financial ties to disclose, Journal editors decide whether they are relevant to the subject and whether they are de minimis.

If any author has potential conflict of interests, one may use the disclosure form developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (February 13, 2020) (https://www.icmje.org/disclosure-of-interest/)

Data Sharing

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and, therefore TPPM, require investigators to provide a data-sharing statement (2018) and register a data-sharing plan when registering a trial (2019). TPPM has not yet formulated a policy on which types of data-sharing plans are acceptable. The authors may refer to the new NIH data sharing plan published in 2023 ( https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/intramural-program-oversight/intramural-data-sharing/2023-nih-data-management-sharing-policy).

Publication Ethics

In addressing concerns raised by readers, the TPPM is guided by the recommendations and policies related to research and publication ethics developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the Committee on Publication Ethics, and the Council of Science Editors.

Publication fee, Copyright, and Public Access

TPPM has no mandatory charges to authors and supports open access for scientific publications, and all the copyrights of the published work belong to the authors unless otherwise clearly stated in the manuscript. If an image or picture has been published previously, it is author’s responsibility to obtain proper legal and copyright permission from the copyright owner. Everyone who has internet access can access the paper without any charges.

Diversity in Research Studies

The TPPM is committed to fostering efforts to ensure that study participants are representative of the patients affected by the condition being studied. Clinical research studies published in the Journal are encouraged to include a table that provides background information on the disease, problem, or condition, and the representativeness of the study group. The table should be referenced in the paper, with comment (when appropriate) about the representativeness of the patient sample and the generalizability of the research findings.

Manipulation of Figures

When submitting new and revised manuscripts, authors must describe and clearly indicate all modifications, selective digital adjustments, and electronic enhancements made to any digital images in the figure legend. Authors must also ensure that all submitted figures meet the following criteria:

No specific feature in an image has been enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced
Any adjustments to brightness, color, or contrast have been made to an entire image and do not misrepresent any features of the original image
No image has been duplicated within the manuscript or published elsewhere
Original image metadata is available and can be provided to TPPM editors on request

Statistics

Authors should familiarize themselves with the guidelines of statistics and follow them, both in the design of research studies and in reporting research findings to the Journal. The review of a manuscript takes into consideration the methods described in the protocol and the statistical analysis plan. However, the scientific integrity of the analysis is of primary importance and, on occasion, may override the prespecified methods; this may lead to requests from the Journal for changes in the analysis as submitted.

The authors must include a description of statistics in the method section, which should contain a brief description of the methods for primary, secondary, and exploratory analyses, as well as a brief description of sample size considerations for the study, including statistical power computations when applicable. More detail on any aspect of the statistical methods can be placed in the supplementary appendix. The software and the version of the software used for statistical analysis should be reported in the manuscript. The authors should also clearly state how the authors managed the missing data, based on current best practices.

Pre-publication Posting

TPPM accepts the submission of manuscripts that have previously been posted on a nonprofit preprint server. Authors should notify TPPM of any preprint or pre-publication (before vigorous review process) related to a manuscript submission.

Pre-submission Inquiry

Authors may choose to send an email to the Chief Editors or Editors of the journal to learn about the suitability of proposed manuscripts or to propose review article topics. We will respond as quickly as possible.

Supporting Authors from developing and under-developed countries

For articles submitted from developing and under-developed countries, our editorial team will guide them to help improve their manuscript to reach the standards for potential publication, even if it is rejected by TPPM.

Medical Meetings and Government Oversight

Presenting research at scientific meetings or submitting results to government oversight boards before publication does not violate TPPM no-prior-publication editorial policy. However, authors should not jeopardize publication of their manuscript by responding to media inquiries at a medical meeting or during the week following a meeting. Authors should refrain from indicating that their research has been submitted to or accepted for publication.

Trademark of TPPM

Any use of TPPM Trademarks in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services, which is likely to cause confusion, to cause mistakes, or to deceive, is strictly prohibited.

Translational Perioperative and Pain Medicine (ISSN: 2330-4871)