When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is assessed to see if it meets the criteria for submission. If it does, the editorial team will select potential peer reviewers within the field of research to peer-review the manuscript and make their recommendations.

Peer review is the system used to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Independent scientists in the relevant research area evaluate submitted manuscripts for originality, validity, and significance to help MJPPS editors determine whether a manuscript should be published in their journal or not. The journal confirms the double-blind peer review system (the reviewers do not know the names of the authors, and the authors do not know who reviewed their manuscript).

Peer review is an integral part of scientific publishing that confirms the validity of the manuscript. By undergoing peer review, manuscripts should become more robust, easier to read, and more useful. Before accepting a review of a manuscript, reviewers should ensure that the manuscript is within their area of expertise and that they can dedicate the appropriate time to conduct a critical review of the manuscript.

Confidentiality: Manuscripts are confidential materials given to a reviewer in trust for the sole purpose of critical evaluation. Reviewers should ensure that the review processes are confidential. Details of the manuscript and the review process should remain confidential during and after the review process.

Plagiarism: The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own, Oxford Dictionaries. It is unethical for reviewers to “use information obtained during the peer-review process for their own or any other person’s or organization’s advantage, or to disadvantage or discredit others”.

Fairness: Reviews should be honest and objective. Reviewers should not be influenced by the origin of the manuscript, the religious, political, or cultural viewpoint of the author, and gender, race, ethnicity, or citizenship of the author. The validity and the quality of the content presented are the only grounds for evaluation.

Review reports: In evaluating a manuscript, reviewers should focus on originality, contribution to the field, technical quality, clarity of presentation, and depth of research. The report should be accurate, objective, constructive, and unambiguous. Comments should be backed by facts and constructive arguments about the content of the manuscript. Reviewers should not rewrite the manuscript; however, necessary corrections and suggestions for improvements should be made.

Timeliness: Reviewers should only accept manuscripts for which they are confident that they can dedicate an appropriate time to reviewing. Thus, reviewers should review and return manuscripts in a timely manner.

Recommendations: Reviewers’ recommendations should be either accepted with no corrections, require minor corrections, major corrections, or rejected.

More Points to Note

- Reviewers should be able to evaluate the entirety of a manuscript.
- Reviewers do not edit manuscript content but provide comments and suggestions for improvement.
- Reviewers should not contact the author without permission from the Editor-in-Chief.
- Any questions about the reviewing process should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief.

Publication Ethics

Publication ethics and publication malpractice statement

Publication malpractice is an unfortunate occurrence in the world of scholarly literature, and its prevention is the responsibility of every author, editor, reviewer, and publisher. Authors are expected to maintain the ethical standards and conduct that remain mandatory in scholarly publishing. During the submission, authors need to state that their work has not been submitted elsewhere. Editors, authors, and reviewers are expected to be aware of and refer to COPE's.

COPE flow charts (please follow the link below) shall also be considered while dealing with plagiarism complaints.

• Suspected plagiarism in a submitted manuscript
• Suspected plagiarism in a published manuscript.

 

Duties of the editor and editorial board:

• Publication decisions: The editor of the Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the Journal should be published, and the editorial board makes the final decision about the articles to be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements. The editor may consult with the editorial board or reviewers in decision-making.
• Fair play: The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
• Confidentiality: The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, as appropriate.

Duties of Reviewers:

• Contribution to Editorial Decisions: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the author, may also assist the author in improving the paper.
• Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
• Disclosure and Conflict of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors:

• Reporting standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
• Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from ‘passing off’ another’s paper as the author’s own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. The Journal has a strict policy against plagiarism. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
• Multiple, Redundant, or Concurrent Publication: An author should not, in general, publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
• Acknowledgment of Sources: Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
• Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
• Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
• Fundamental errors in published work: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Reporting standards and transparency

Reporting guidelines

The EQUATOR Network sets out to promote reporting guidelines for published research with the aim of improving transparency and accuracy. Each manuscript type has an associated guideline, such as:

• PRISMA guidelines used for Systematic Reviews
• CONSORT guidelines for reporting results derived from Randomized Clinical Trials
• ARRIVE guidelines for reporting animal pre-clinical studies
• CARE guidelines for Case Reports

The MJPPS encourages and requires authors to follow these reporting guidelines as part of their publication ethics guidelines. It is also suggested that reviewers use them when reviewing manuscripts. The editorial office will perform detailed checks before the peer review process to assess compliance with ethical standards. These include:

1. Ethics approval and permissions for research involving human subjects, animals, or cell lines;
2. Plagiarism, duplicate publication detection;
3. Necessary permission from the copyright holder to include already-published figures or images;
4. Clinical Trials Registration, and reference to the registration in the Methods Section;
5. Completion of all backmatter, including data statement, author contribution statement, informed consent documents, funding, and conflicts of interest;
6. Detection of conflicts of interest between authors, academic editors, and reviewers.

Transparency and disclosure policies

Raw data requests and submissions

MJPPS may request raw or original data from authors as part of routine submission checks or as part of formal investigations into the integrity of a manuscript or published article. Authors are required to provide complete, unaltered datasets in a timely and secure manner when requested. Please ensure that your data is submitted in the correct format and in line with best practices for transparency and reproducibility.

Clinical trials reporting and registration

All clinical trials must comply with the policy outlined below. Failure to meet the policy requirements at the time of submission may lead to the rejection of your manuscript.

MJPPS follows the World Health Organization definition of a clinical trial: “any research study that prospectively assigns human participants or groups of humans to one or more health-related interventions to evaluate the effects on health outcomes. Interventions include but are not restricted to drugs, cells, and other biological products, surgical procedures, radiologic procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, process-of-care changes, preventive care, etc. This definition includes Phase I to Phase IV trials.”

Trial registration

In accordance with the recommendations and guidelines provided by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMEJ), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Declaration of Helsinki, all clinical trials submitted to MJPPS must be registered prospectively in any Primary Registry in the WHO Registry Network or an ICMJE Approved Registry at or before the recruitment of the first subject. This applies to all clinical trials that began enrolment after 1 July 2005. MJPPS will reject retrospectively registered clinical trials.

Reporting standards

Information on the clinical trial registration within the abstract, including the Clinical Trials Unique Identifier, Registry Name, and URL, must be presented in the abstract.

Any changes made since the registration of the trial must be communicated using the CONSERVE guidelines. Unreported discrepancies may lead to rejection of the manuscript.

For randomized trials: Clinical trials with randomization should comply with the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 25-item checklist and include a CONSORT flow diagram in the figures or supplementary material.

Clinical trials and artificial intelligence (AI): Clinical trials with AI components should adhere to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials-Artificial Intelligence extension.

N-of-1: Case reports investigating intervention effectiveness in a single participant should follow the CONSORT extension for N-of-1.

Clinical study protocols: Protocols must be registered in a public clinical trial registry and follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines and checklist.

Clinical study protocols and artificial intelligence (AI): Clinical study protocols evaluating interventions with an AI component should conform to the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence (SPIRIT-AI) extension.

For clinical protocols

All submissions should follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guidelines and checklist. For Study Protocols of Clinical Trials that use AI components, please follow the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials–Artificial Intelligence extension.

Please include the registry name, unique identifier, and URL in the abstract.

Conflicts of interest policy

A conflict of interest can be anything that potentially interferes with, or that could be perceived as interfering with, full and objective peer review, decision-making, or publication of articles submitted to MJPPS. Personal, financial, and professional affiliations or relationships can be perceived as conflicts of interest.

All authors and members of Mediterranean Journals' editorial boards are required to disclose any actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission or upon accepting an editorial or review assignment. MJ's review system is designed to guarantee the most transparent and objective editorial and review process, and because the handling editor's and reviewers' names are made public upon the publication of articles, conflicts of interest will be widely apparent. Failure to declare competing interests can result in the rejection of a manuscript. If an undisclosed competing interest comes to light after publication, MJPPS will take action in accordance with internal policies and Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines.

What should I disclose?

As an author, disclosure of any potential conflicts of interest should be made during the submission process. Consider the following questions and make sure you disclose any positive answers.

For commercial affiliations, all authors must be accounted for. We recommend using the following template: [AUTHOR NAME] was employed by [COMPANY]. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. For commercial funding, the role of the funder must be declared. We recommend the following statements: The authors declare that this study received funding from [FUNDER NAME]. The funder had the following involvement with the study: [DESCRIPTION OF INVOLVEMENT]. The authors declare that this study received funding from [FUNDER NAME]. The funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit it for publication.

What about editors and reviewers?

Handling editors and reviewers will be asked to consider the following potential conflicts of interest before accepting any editing or review assignment (Family, collaboration, affiliations, and financial).

Artificial intelligence

Fair use and disclosure policy. This policy covers acceptable uses of generative AI technologies such as Large Language Models (ChatGPT, Jasper) and text-to-image generators (DALL-E 2, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion) in the writing or editing of manuscripts submitted to Mediterranean Journals.

AI-generated text and authorship

If AI tools have been used to generate the main text, then this must be clearly disclosed in the acknowledgments. Authors should not list a generative AI technology as a co-author or author of any submitted manuscript. Generative AI technologies cannot be held accountable for all aspects of a manuscript and consequently do not meet the ICMJE criteria required for authorship. If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, this use must comply with all Mediterranean Journals guidelines and policies. Specifically, the author remains responsible for checking the factual accuracy of all content created using generative AI technology. This includes, but is not limited to, any quotes, citations, or references. Figures produced by or edited using a generative AI technology must be checked to ensure they accurately reflect the data presented in the manuscript. Authors must also check that any written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology is free from plagiarism.

AI use by editors and reviewers

MJPPS adheres to WAME, EASE, and COPE guidelines on the use of AI in peer review. Academic editors and invited community reviewers remain solely responsible for the accuracy, integrity, and relevance of their peer review reports and editorial decisions.
 

Ethical research conduct policies

All research submitted to Mediterranean Journals for consideration must have been conducted in accordance with international guidelines on study ethics to ensure your work meets the standards.
 

Research ethics and ethics approval

All research submitted to MJPPS for consideration must have been conducted in accordance with the guidelines on study ethics. In accordance with COPE guidelines, MJPPS reserves the right to reject any manuscript that editors believe does not uphold high ethical standards, even if authors have obtained ethical approval or if ethical approval is not required. MJPPS encourages authors to follow the ARRIVE guidelines for the design, analysis, and reporting of scientific research.

Animal subjects

MJPPS is committed to upholding the highest standards of ethical conduct in research involving animals. To ensure the well-being and ethical treatment of animals in scientific studies, we have established the following guidelines for authors submitting manuscripts involving animal research, which are in line with international standards.

Policy requirements for research involving animal subjects

All research involving regulated animals must have been reviewed and approved by an ethics committee before commencing the study and performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines and regulations. MJPPS reserves the right to reject a manuscript if evidence of ethics approval is not provided after request.

Experimental considerations

Compliance with standards: Studies involving animals should be conducted according to internationally accepted standards and are expected to comply with the principle. MJPPS endorses the Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines for reporting experiments involving live animals. Animal housing and husbandry: In accordance with the ARRIVE guidelines, authors are expected to provide details on the housing, husbandry, and pain management of animals in their manuscript, along with steps taken to minimize suffering. For non-human primate research, authors should ensure that their reporting meets the standards outlined in the NC3Rs primate guidelines.

Anesthesia and euthanasia of animals: Authors are advised to consult the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals (2020) for guidance on veterinary best practice for the anesthesia and euthanasia of animals. Authors are encouraged to provide a full description of any anesthetic, surgical, or euthanasia procedures performed during a study. All manuscripts describing studies where death is an endpoint will be subject to additional ethical considerations. MJPPS reserves the right to reject manuscripts lacking appropriate justification.

Field studies on free-living animals

Researchers studying free-living animals should take all possible precautions to minimize the impact of their study on the populations and ecosystems that their research is investigating. All field studies must have appropriate licenses and permits, details of which should be included in the Methods section of the manuscript. Endangered or threatened species should only be used in research where scientific benefit outweighs the harm, such as a direct conservational or welfare application. MJPPS endorses the IUCN Position Statement on research involving species at risk of extinction, which outlines that research using threatened species should only be conducted if the study is intended to positively contribute to the likelihood of survival of the species, or that research programmes involving such species that do not directly contribute to conservation should acknowledge an obligation to the species in another manner. The conservation status of a species can be ascertained by consulting the CITES database or the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Editorial assessments for animal ethics

MJPPS editors and editorial staff independently evaluate research ethics, even where ethics approval is provided. Additional documentation may be requested if study details deviate from common animal research practices. Manuscripts may be rejected if there is any concern that protocols endanger animal welfare, or if the animal cost appears excessive compared to the intended scientific benefit. MJPPS reserves the right to reject a manuscript if research involves protocols that are inconsistent with commonly accepted norms for animal welfare, irrespective of any ethics committee approval granted to the study or previous publications using such protocols.

Studies involving human participants

Research involving human participants should have been conducted in accordance with the World Medical Association's Declaration of Helsinki. Studies involving human participants must be performed in accordance with relevant institutional and national guidelines, with the appropriate institutional ethics committee's prior approval and informed written consent from all human subjects involved in the study, including for publication of the results. Confirmation of this approval is required upon submission of a manuscript to MJPPS; authors must provide ethics committee information within the submission system, which generates an ethics statement to be included in the submission. Information regarding subjects' (or when appropriate, the parents' or guardians') consent for participation should be provided within the submission system.

MJPPS requires that consent for participation is both informed and written, unless waived by an ethics committee or otherwise not required as per local legislation. The submission system will generate an ethics statement in the following format (the statement will also be included in the final manuscript version for publication): "The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by [Full name and affiliation of ethics committee]. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study." If the study is exempt from ethics approval or consent procedures, authors need to clearly state the reasons in the generated statement. MJPPS may request a letter from the authors, obtained from an ethics committee, in cases where full review and approval have been waived by the committee. To protect subject anonymity, identifying information should not be included in the manuscript unless such information is necessary for scientific purposes AND explicit approval has been granted by the subjects.

Human organs and transplantation research

MJPPS opposes the use of unethically procured human organs and is guided by the principles set out in the Declaration of Istanbul and the WHO Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue, and Organ Transplantation.

Authors are expected to take an active role in ensuring that the provenance and sourcing of organs are transparent and ethically compliant. Any research involving human organs must have appropriate ethics approval. To support transparency and traceability, we ask authors to publicly report organ provenance (including stating the procuring institution, location/country, consent process, and ethics oversight) in the ethics statement within the manuscript.

MJPPS relies on authors’ integrity and institutional oversight to uphold ethical standards before the research begins. If credible concerns arise that organs may have been procured unethically, the matter will be investigated in line with our publication ethics procedures. Retraction and/or other appropriate editorial action will be pursued where unethical procurement is confirmed, or where serious concerns remain unresolved after investigation due to insufficient or unverifiable provenance or consent information.

Studies involving vulnerable populations

Our research integrity team may request extra information from authors researching vulnerable populations. This may include: The recruitment procedures and rationale for population use, and a copy of the consent form that was read and signed by participants. The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee, and any other standard documents, such as the ethical approval certificate and consent form(s).

For studies on vulnerable populations, authors must ensure that the data is summarized and does not include any individual data. The following data availability statement can be used to direct researchers to access your data: 'The datasets for this article are not publicly available due to concerns regarding participant/patient anonymity. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the corresponding author.'

Inclusion of identifiable human data

MJPPS follows the ICMJE recommendations on the protection of research participants, which state that patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. We require nonessential identifiable details to be omitted from all manuscripts, and written informed consent will be required if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. It is the responsibility of the researchers and authors to ensure that these principles are complied with, including the obtaining of written informed consent for publication of any potentially identifiable data or images.

Written informed consent can be documented on a form provided by an institution or ethics committee, and it must clearly state how the identifiable data will be used. MJPPS's own ETHICAL CONSIDERATION APPROVAL may be used for this purpose, although not required if an alternative form of consent, meeting the ICMJE recommendations, is used. We consider it to be the author's duty to encourage participants or patients whose consent for publication is required to read and understand the ICMJE guidelines, for their information, before completing the consent form. Participants should also be encouraged to ask any questions and ensure they are comfortable before signing the consent form.

The completed consent forms should be stored by authors or their respective institutions, in accordance with institutional policies. Completed forms should not be included with your MJPPS submission. However, consent forms should be made available upon request from the editor or editorial office, during the review process, or post-publication.

Please note that written informed consent for publication is required for all case report articles where the patient or subject is identified or identifiable. Information regarding participant/patient consent for publication of identifiable data should be provided within the submission system. This will generate an ethics statement that will be directly included in the manuscript.

Experiments

Authors are required to state explicitly in their legends how many times each experiment was performed (in general, we require n=3 as a minimum) and which specific statistical analysis was performed.