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Guidelines for Medical and Social Science Research
Ethical Considerations and Patient Consent
For studies involving human subjects, research must comply with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Manuscripts should adhere to:
- The ICMJE Recommendations for medical research and scholarly work.
- Ethics committee approval, explicitly stating the institutional review board (IRB) name and approval number.
- Informed consent requirements, including whether it was written or verbal.
- Protection of patient confidentiality (no identifiable details should be published without explicit consent).
For animal research, the study must have ethics approval from the appropriate oversight committee.
Clinical Trial Registration
Many EPH journals require clinical trials to be registered in a WHO-approved public registry before the first patient enrollment. The trial registry name, URL, and registration number should be included in the abstract.
Reporting Standards
Authors should follow EQUATOR Network reporting guidelines, such as:
- CONSORT for randomized controlled trials.
- STROBE for observational studies.
- PRISMA for systematic reviews.
Additional resources are available through NLM’s Research Reporting Guidelines and Initiatives.
Registered Reports and Replication Studies
EPH encourages Registered Reports and Validation/Replication Studies to ensure reproducibility. See our Registered Report Guidelines for details.
