Publication Ethics

Based on the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and in considering any conflict of interest or ethical violations that may arise during peer review and publication, editors will take the necessary measures to identify and prevent the publication of articles with research misconduct or ethical violations, including plagiarism, manipulation of citations, falsification/fabrication of data, absence of relevant authorizations, discrimination, and others ethical issues.

 

Plagiarism Analysis

Acta Fisiátrica uses the iThenticate anti-plagiarism software to check the originality of articles before publication.

Suspicious situations and allegations that editors and reviewers become aware of will be addressed to the Editorial Committee, which will take the appropriate measures, including referral to higher levels of the University, whenever necessary.

 

Authors Responsibilities

The authors are responsible for the truth and originality of the manuscripts and for the proper permissions to use figures or tables that may be sources of third parties. The manuscript must be submitted and attached to the Exclusivity, Conflict of Interests, and Responsibility Statement signed by the first author. These documents state that the study has not been previously published, partially or entirely, in printed or electronic media, nor submitted for publication in other Journals, and that all authors participated in the intellectual elaboration of its content.

All authors must agree to the copyright transfer form (Copyright Disclosure) at the time of submission. Published manuscripts become the property of the journal Acta Fisiátrica, and their reproduction, in whole or in part, is subject to the written authorization of the Editorial Board.

 

Authorship Criteria

Acta Fisiatrica receives manuscripts with up to eight (8) authors. The criteria for authorship adhere to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) that suggests the authorship must be based on the following four criteria (ipsis litteris from ICMJE):

1^st – Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;

2^nd – Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;

3^rd – Final approval of the version to be published;

4^th – 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 work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Authors are those who meet all criteria conditions. The first author, when signing the responsibility statement, agree to the participation of all other authors in the preparation of the manuscript and admit, publicly, to be responsible for its content. In the “Cover Sheet” of the manuscript, information on the specific contribution of each author to the manuscript elaboration must be included.

Those who do not meet the authorship criteria described above cannot be listed as authors. Nonetheless, they must be explicitly acknowledged as contributors in the Acknowledgments section.

 

Acknowledgments

Whenever it is worthwhile and appropriate, it is recommended to name, at the end of the manuscript, those who actively collaborated with the study, even without meeting the authorship criteria. Authors are responsible for obtaining permission from these people before naming them in their acknowledgments. Acknowledgments may also be given to institutions for financial or logistical support.

 

Funding

Authors must acknowledge all sources of funding or support, institutional or private, received to conduct the study and refer to any number or identification that allows for tracking the funding processes. This information must also appear on the “Cover Letter” of the manuscript.

 

Conflict of Interest

According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), a conflict of interest occurs when an author or institution has relations of any kind with organizations or individuals that may influence the study analysis, results, or interpretation. Authors must declare the existence of financial relationships (employment relationships, consultancies, fees, patents, and payment for expert testimony) or other relationships (personal relationships, rivalries, academic competition, and intellectual beliefs). If there was no conflict of interest, the authors must also declare the absence of conflicts of interest during the study. The “Cover Letter” and the “Exclusivity, Conflict of Interests, and Responsibility Statement” must include information about conflicts of interest.

 

Ethical Approval

The agreement with ethical ordinances regarding the conduction and the research is the authors' sole responsibility and should be understood under the ethical recommendations embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki (2000). For research conducted with human beings in Brazil, the authors must fully observe the regulations of the National Health Council Resolutions (Resoluções do Conselho Nacional de Saúde - CNS) No. 466, of December 12^th, 2012 and No. 510, of April 7^th, 2016 or any complementary resolutions, for specific situations. The ethical procedures adopted in the research must be described in the last paragraph of the Methods section, and, whenever suitable, the research protocol approval number by an Independent Ethics Committee (IEC) or Ethics Review Board (ERB) must be informed. If the research was conducted in Brazil, the IEC or ERB must be accredited by the Brazilian National Health Council (Conselho Nacional de Saúde – CNS).

 

Study Registration

Clinical trials must indicate the identification number in one of the clinical trial records validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), For systematic reviews, it is suggested that the authors inform the protocol registration number in the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) database.