Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (eISSN 3103-537X) continues Infermieristica Journal (eISSN 2785-7018).

Editorial Policies

Editorial Policies

Contents

The Publisher and the Journal are committed to a transparent, fair, and objective double-anonymous (double-blind) peer review process, aimed at ensuring the publication of high-quality, unbiased, and ethically sound research. All manuscripts are evaluated independently by qualified external reviewers. We expect authors, reviewers, and editors to adhere to the highest ethical standards in order to maintain the integrity, accuracy, and transparency of the scholarly record.
This document outlines the most relevant ethical standards, but it is not exhaustive. Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (IJNH) follows COPE’s guidelines for handling potentially unethical behavior by authors, reviewers, or editors, and we encourage authors, reviewers, and editors to refer to the COPE website and guidelines for further guidance.
In case of concerns raised by readers, we will investigate using procedures recommended by COPE and, wherever possible, they will be resolved by the editorial board. We expect authors to respond responsibly to any allegations made against them.

Research Integrity

Research integrity is a broad term which identifies different types of unethical behavior during the research and publication process. In Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health, authors are required to warrant, during the submission process, that their study and the submitted article meet all integrity criteria outlined below. A breach in research integrity may result in the article being rejected.

Authorship

Each person listed as an author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content and agree to be accountable for all aspects related to its accuracy or integrity. The participation must include:

  • Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • Final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • 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 who do not meet the above criteria should be acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section. We encourage all authors to supply their ORCID and to include in a statement individual contributions following the CredIt taxonomy.
The participation of scientific and medical writers should be acknowledged by disclosing their funding. If a study has been conducted by a large multicenter group, you should identify the individuals responsible for its submission, who should fully meet criteria for authorship. Authors from pharmaceutical companies or other commercial organizations sponsoring research papers should declare these as conflict of interest during the submission.

Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is responsible for submission and all communication with the Journal regarding that submission. It is the corresponding author’s responsibility to ensure that all authors meet the required authorship criteria indicated above and for ensuring that the conflict of interest disclosures included in the manuscript’s disclosures are accurate and up-to-date.

Order of Authors

The order of authorship should be agreed upon by all authors prior to submission and must reflect their relative contributions to the work. After submission, requests to modify the order of authors, or to add or remove authors, must be submitted in writing by the Corresponding Author and must be supported by the agreement of all authors involved.

Such requests will be considered only during the editorial process. If consensus among authors cannot be reached, the manuscript will not proceed further. Changes to authorship requested at advanced stages of the editorial process may result in delays in publication.

Changes to Authorship After Publication

Changes to authorship after publication (including addition, removal, or rearrangement of authors) are permitted only in exceptional circumstances. Requests must be submitted by the Corresponding Author and must include a clear justification for the change, along with written confirmation from all authors (including any authors to be added or removed) agreeing to the modification.

The journal will assess such requests in accordance with COPE guidelines and may involve the authors’ institutions where necessary. If a change is approved, the journal will issue a formal correction notice to ensure transparency of the scholarly record.

Conflict of Interest

Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (IJNH) requires full disclosure of any conflict of interest or competing interest that could influence, or reasonably be perceived to influence, the editorial process, the interpretation of data, or the presentation of research findings.

Conflicts of interest may be financial, personal, professional, institutional, or intellectual in nature. Examples include, but are not limited to, grants, employment, consultancies, honoraria, advisory roles, stock ownership, paid expert testimony, personal relationships, academic competition, or strongly held positions that may affect objective judgment.

Authors must disclose all relevant conflicts of interest and all sources of financial or material support at the time of submission. A dedicated Conflict of Interest Statement must be included in the manuscript and will be published in the final article. If no conflicts of interest exist, authors must explicitly state:

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest that may affect their ability to provide an objective and fair assessment of the manuscript. Reviewers with relevant conflicts of interest must decline the invitation to review. Reviewers must also treat all manuscripts as confidential documents and must not use unpublished material for personal or professional advantage.

Editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest. In such cases, editorial responsibility will be assigned to another editor with no relevant competing interests. Submissions authored or co-authored by members of the Editorial Board, the Editor-in-Chief, or other members of the editorial team will be handled independently by an editor who is not involved in the manuscript and who has no conflict of interest. These submissions will be subject to the same peer review and editorial standards as all other manuscripts. If a conflict of interest is identified after submission or publication, the journal will investigate the matter in accordance with COPE principles and may take appropriate action, including requesting additional disclosures, publishing a correction, or retracting the article where necessary. Failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest may result in rejection of the manuscript or, if the article has already been published, correction, retraction, or notification to the relevant institution or funding body.

Research Misconduct

Research misconduct identifies fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
Authors must avoid duplicate publication, which involves reproducing verbatim content from their other publications. Recycling text from their own previous publications may be considered self-plagiarism and may be unacceptable. Full attribution and compliance with copyright must be ensured when using the authors’ own previous publications.
Theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and/or the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work constitutes plagiarism. This journal systematically employs iThenticate, a plagiarism detection and prevention software designed to ensure the originality of written work before publication. Manuscripts proved to include plagiarized content will be rejected.
Inappropriate image manipulation is a recognized form of data fabrication or falsification. Figures and illustrations submitted with an article must be original. Any figure that has been published elsewhere must have an acknowledgment to the original source; a copy of the permission to publish the figure, signed by the copyright holder, must accompany the submission. Image manipulation that may affect data interpretation is a frequent cause of rejection or retraction. The use of generative or non-generative machine learning tools to create, combine, enhance, and edit existing images must be disclosed in the figure legend.
The journal implements safeguards to prevent manipulation of the peer review process, including verification of reviewer identities and careful evaluation of reviewer suggestions.

All allegations of research misconduct are handled in accordance with the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Concerns may be raised by editors, reviewers, readers, or third parties at any stage of the publication process, including after publication.

The Journal may request additional information from the authors, including original data, ethics documentation, or clarification regarding authorship and disclosures. Where appropriate, the Journal may involve the authors’ institutions or relevant bodies.

Depending on the outcome of the investigation, the Journal may take appropriate actions, including:

  • rejection of the manuscript;
  • publication of a correction;
  • publication of an expression of concern;
  • retraction of the article;
  • notification to the authors’ institutions or funding bodies.

All investigations will be conducted in a fair, confidential, and transparent manner, in line with COPE recommendations.

Data Availability

Authors must ensure that the data supporting the findings of their study are available and accessible, where appropriate, in accordance with ethical, legal, and privacy considerations.

All research articles must include a Data Availability Statement specifying where and how the data supporting the results can be accessed.

Authors should indicate whether data are:

  • publicly available in a repository (including relevant persistent identifiers such as DOI or accession numbers);
  • available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request;
  • subject to restrictions due to ethical, legal, or confidentiality reasons (which must be clearly stated);
  • not applicable (with justification).

Editors may request access to underlying data during the peer review process or after publication in the case of concerns regarding the integrity or validity of the research.

Research Ethics

Research ethics is a broad term which identifies the ethical approach to developing a research study.

Research on Human Subjects

When human subjects are involved in a study, authors must provide a statement identifying the ethics committee or institutional review board that approved the study, including the name of the committee and, where applicable, the approval number or reference code.

Authors must also confirm that the study was conducted in accordance with recognized ethical standards, such as the Declaration of Helsinki and, where relevant, the European Medicines Agency Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice.

Where applicable, authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained from participants prior to their inclusion in the study.

If ethics approval was not required, authors must state this explicitly and provide a clear explanation. In such cases, authors remain responsible for ensuring that the research was conducted in accordance with applicable ethical principles and legal requirements.

Patient Confidentiality

Whenever a study or case report includes data or images which could identify a patient, explicit written consent for publication (which is different from consent to take part in research) must be obtained and included in the submitted article. In the case of minors, the consent must be signed by a parent or guardian.
When organ transplantation is described in the article, the author should state that they adhered to the Declaration of Istanbul, which specifically addresses delicate subjects related to organ supply.

Sex and Gender

Authors are encouraged to adopt the ‘Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines’ using the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) where relevant, to avoid confusing both terms.

Research on Human Embryos, Gametes, and Stem Cells

When human embryos, gametes, stem cells, and related material are involved in a study, authors must provide a statement confirming that the study conforms to recognized ethical standards and applicable regulations.

Research Involving Animals

When animals are involved in research, authors must ensure that studies comply with recognized ethical standards and applicable regulations. Authors should confirm that the study was approved by an appropriate ethics committee or institutional body and conducted in accordance with internationally accepted guidelines, such as the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines.

Research Involving Plants

When reporting research involving plants (either cultivated or wild), authors must confirm compliance with relevant institutional, national, and international guidelines and legislation. Where applicable, authors should provide information on permits, permissions, or approvals required for the collection or use of plant material.

Clinical Trial Registration

All clinical trials must be registered at an appropriate online public registry that should be electronically searchable and include a minimum of data elements (www.icmje.org). The trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included in the manuscript.

Funding Policy

Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (IJNH) requires full transparency regarding all sources of funding supporting the research submitted for publication.

Authors must disclose all financial and material support received for the conduct of the study and/or preparation of the manuscript. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • research grants from public or private institutions
  • institutional or departmental support
  • industry funding or sponsorship
  • provision of equipment, drugs, or other materials
  • funding for data collection, analysis, or manuscript preparation

If no funding has been received, authors must explicitly state:

“This research received no external funding.”

All funding information must be included in a dedicated Funding Statement within the manuscript and will be published in the final article.

The journal requires that funding sources are clearly identified, including the name of the funding body and, where applicable, the grant number. Editors may request additional clarification regarding funding sources at any stage of the editorial process. Failure to disclose funding sources may result in rejection of the manuscript, correction or retraction of the published article, and notification to relevant institutions or funders.

Appeals Policy

Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (IJNH) recognizes the right of authors to appeal editorial decisions when they believe that a decision may have been influenced by a misunderstanding of the manuscript, factual inaccuracies in the review process, or deviations from the journal’s editorial procedures.

Authors who wish to appeal a decision are invited to submit a formal request via email to: ijnh@ieditore.com

The appeal should clearly identify the manuscript (including its ID) and provide a detailed and reasoned justification, addressing the specific points raised in the editorial decision and, where applicable, in the reviewers’ comments.

All appeals are handled with due care and impartiality. They are evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and, when appropriate, by an independent member of the Editorial Board who was not involved in the original decision-making process. Additional expert opinions may be sought if necessary.

The journal aims to reach a decision on appeals within a reasonable timeframe, typically within 30 days. The outcome of the appeal will be communicated to the author with a clear explanation of the decision. Decisions reached following an appeal are considered final. The journal reserves the right not to consider repeated or unsubstantiated appeals.

Complaints Policy

The Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (IJNH) is committed to ensuring a fair, transparent, and accountable editorial process. The journal welcomes complaints regarding any aspect of its operations and undertakes to address them in a timely and responsible manner, in accordance with the principles and guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Complaints may relate to editorial decisions, the peer review process, ethical concerns, conflicts of interest, delays in publication, or the conduct of authors, reviewers, or members of the editorial team.

All complaints should be submitted in writing via email to: ijnh@ieditore.com

Complainants are encouraged to provide a clear and detailed description of the issue, including any relevant supporting documentation, in order to facilitate an effective evaluation.

Upon receipt, the journal will acknowledge the complaint and initiate an internal review. Complaints are handled impartially and, where appropriate, may be evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief or by a member of the Editorial Board who was not involved in the matter concerned. In cases involving members of the editorial team, the journal will ensure that the evaluation is conducted independently.

The journal aims to provide a response within a reasonable timeframe, typically within 30 days. Where necessary, the journal may seek external advice or involve relevant institutions in the resolution of the issue.

IJNH is committed to maintaining the integrity of the scholarly record and to resolving complaints in a manner that is consistent, fair, and aligned with best practices in academic publishing.

Interdisciplinary Journal of Nursing and Health (eISSN: 3103-537X) continues Infermieristica Journal (eISSN 2785-7018).