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Journal of Medical Internet Research Aug 2022Publishing identifiable patient data in scientific journals may jeopardize patient privacy and confidentiality if best ethical practices are not followed. Current... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Publishing identifiable patient data in scientific journals may jeopardize patient privacy and confidentiality if best ethical practices are not followed. Current journal practices show considerable diversity in the publication of identifiable patient photographs, and different stakeholders may have different opinions of and practices in publishing patient photographs.
OBJECTIVE
This scoping review aimed to identify existing evidence and map knowledge gaps in medical research on the policies and practices of publishing identifiable photographs in scientific articles.
METHODS
We performed a comprehensive search of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, CINAHL with Full Text, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Ovid MEDLINE, and Scopus. The Open Science Framework, PROSPERO, BASE, Google Scholar, OpenGrey, ClinicalTrials.gov, the Campbell Collaboration Library, and Science.gov were also searched.
RESULTS
After screening the initial 15,949 titles and abstracts, 98 (0.61%) publications were assessed for eligibility at the full-text level, and 30 (0.19%) publications were included in this review. The studies were published between 1994 and 2020; most had a cross-sectional design and were published in journals covering different medical disciplines. We identified 3 main topics. The first included ethical aspects of the use of facial photographs in publications. In different clinical settings, the consent process was not conducted properly, and health professionals did not recognize the importance of obtaining written patient consent for taking and using patient medical photographs. They often considered verbal consent sufficient or even used the photographs without consent. The second topic included studies that investigated the practices and use of medical photography in publishing. Both patients and doctors asked for confidential storage and maintenance of medical photographs. Patients preferred to be photographed by their physicians using an institutional camera and preferred nonidentifiable medical photographs not only for publication but also in general. Conventional methods of deidentification of facial photographs concealing the eye area were recognized as unsuccessful in protecting patient privacy. The third topic emerged from studies investigating medical photography in journal articles. These studies showed great diversity in publishing practices regarding consent for publication of medical photographs. Journal policies regarding the consent process and consent forms were insufficient, and existing ethical professional guidelines were not fully implemented in actual practices. Patients' photographs from open-access medical journals were found on public web-based platforms.
CONCLUSIONS
This scoping review showed a diversity of practices in publishing identifiable patient photographs and an unsatisfactory level of knowledge of this issue among different stakeholders despite existing standards. Emerging issues include the availability of patients' photographs from open-access journals or preprints in the digital environment. There is a need to improve standards and processes to obtain proper consent to fully protect the privacy of patients in published articles.
Topics: Cross-Sectional Studies; Humans; Informed Consent; Periodicals as Topic; Policy; Publishing; Systematic Reviews as Topic
PubMed: 36044262
DOI: 10.2196/37594 -
PLoS Biology Feb 2022Amid the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, preprints in the biomedical sciences are being posted and accessed at unprecedented rates, drawing widespread...
Amid the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, preprints in the biomedical sciences are being posted and accessed at unprecedented rates, drawing widespread attention from the general public, press, and policymakers for the first time. This phenomenon has sharpened long-standing questions about the reliability of information shared prior to journal peer review. Does the information shared in preprints typically withstand the scrutiny of peer review, or are conclusions likely to change in the version of record? We assessed preprints from bioRxiv and medRxiv that had been posted and subsequently published in a journal through April 30, 2020, representing the initial phase of the pandemic response. We utilised a combination of automatic and manual annotations to quantify how an article changed between the preprinted and published version. We found that the total number of figure panels and tables changed little between preprint and published articles. Moreover, the conclusions of 7.2% of non-COVID-19-related and 17.2% of COVID-19-related abstracts undergo a discrete change by the time of publication, but the majority of these changes do not qualitatively change the conclusions of the paper.
Topics: COVID-19; Humans; Information Dissemination; Pandemics; Peer Review, Research; Periodicals as Topic; Publications; Publishing; SARS-CoV-2
PubMed: 35104285
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001285 -
Acta Medica Portuguesa Mar 2019
Topics: History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Periodicals as Topic; Portugal; Publishing
PubMed: 30946785
DOI: 10.20344/amp.12021 -
Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons... Mar 2015'The secret is comprised in three words - work, finish, publish.' Michael Faraday There are many reasons doctors want to publish their work. For most at an early stage...
'The secret is comprised in three words - work, finish, publish.' Michael Faraday There are many reasons doctors want to publish their work. For most at an early stage in their career, this may be to add a line to their curriculum vitae and advance their careers but for academics, publishing is an expectation. Many will believe they have something important to say, and wish to provoke debate and discussion; others wish to share knowledge and experiences, which in medicine can lead to a satisfying change in clinical practice. All serve to register one's idea and educate others. However, for some, the reason is as basic as money. As we celebrate the 350th anniversary of the first academic publication, perhaps we have come full circle when it comes to why people publish? Publishing is a flourishing business. There were approximately 28,100 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals in mid-2012, collectively publishing about 1.8-1.9 million articles per year. The number of articles published each year and the number of journals have both grown steadily for more than two centuries, by about 3% and 3.5% per year respectively. (1) Journals have a responsibility to refine and define information and act as a scientific filter. Many of us will receive daily invitations in our email inbox from eclectic and new journals that are likely to take anything - is the filter now too porous? But this industry is like any other commercial activity and the supply still far outstrips the demand. Perhaps the internet revolution has merely fuelled our hunger to publish more? The launch of this exciting and innovative series about publishing coincides with the 350th celebration of the publication of the first academic journal. In the age of social media, the first question is 'What are journals for?', which Simon Rallison sets out to answer. Simon is Director of Publications at the Physiological Society, and was previously a journal publisher with Earthscan, Springer and Blackwell. Writing is hard work and, through this series, I hope the reader will get some useful insight into this service industry for academia. Jyoti Shah Commissioning Editor Reference 1. Ware M, Mabe M. The STM Report. 3rd edn. The Hague: International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers; 2012.
Topics: Forecasting; Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Publishing
PubMed: 25723682
DOI: 10.1308/003588414X14055925061397 -
PLoS Medicine Dec 2014Hilda Bastian considers post-publication commenting and the cultural changes that are needed to better capture this intellectual effort. Please see later in the article...
Hilda Bastian considers post-publication commenting and the cultural changes that are needed to better capture this intellectual effort. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.
Topics: Publications; Publishing; Science
PubMed: 25548904
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001772 -
Medicina 2023The publication of medical articles has become increasingly complex, linked to multiple factors. It poses difficult problems for both authors and journals themselves....
The publication of medical articles has become increasingly complex, linked to multiple factors. It poses difficult problems for both authors and journals themselves. This Editorial addresses current and controversial issues: peer review, preprints as a new way of disseminating knowledge, the growing number of publications without peer review and its variants, and the risks of predatory publications. The article proposes future guidelines as an editorial policy of MEDICINA. The controversy continues, and surely the passage of time will place our proposal in a changing scientific world like knowledge itself.
Topics: Humans; Publishing; Periodicals as Topic; Peer Review; Medicine
PubMed: 36774603
DOI: No ID Found -
Emergency Medicine Journal : EMJ Sep 2007
Topics: Duplicate Publications as Topic; Editorial Policies; Ethics, Professional; Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Plagiarism; Publishing; Scientific Misconduct
PubMed: 17711931
DOI: 10.1136/emj.2007.051987 -
Journal of the American College of... Feb 1994
Topics: Duplicate Publications as Topic; Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Publishing
PubMed: 8294711
DOI: 10.1016/0735-1097(94)90444-8 -
Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and... Dec 2017This article details an updated version of the principles of ethical authorship and publishing in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle (JCSM). At the time of...
This article details an updated version of the principles of ethical authorship and publishing in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle (JCSM). At the time of submission to JCSM, the corresponding author, on behalf of all co-authors, needs to certify adherence to these principles. The principles are as follows: All authors listed on a manuscript considered for publication have approved its submission and (if accepted) publication as provided to JCSM. No person who has a right to be recognized as author has been omitted from the list of authors on the submitted manuscript. Each author has made a material and independent contribution to the work submitted for publication. The submitted work is original and is neither under consideration elsewhere nor that it has been published previously in whole or in part other than in abstract form. All authors certify that the work is original and does not contain excessive overlap with prior or contemporaneous publication elsewhere, and where the publication reports on cohorts, trials, or data that have been reported on before these other publications must be referenced. All original research work has been approved by the relevant bodies such as institutional review boards or ethics committees. All conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, that may affect the authors' ability to present data objectively, and relevant sources of funding have been duly declared in the manuscript. The manuscript in its published form will be maintained on the servers of JCSM as a valid publication only as long as all statements in the guidelines on ethical publishing remain true. If any of the aforementioned statements ceases to be true, the authors have a duty to notify the Editors of JCSM as soon as possible so that the available information regarding the published article can be updated and/or the manuscript can be withdrawn.
Topics: Humans; Periodicals as Topic; Publishing
PubMed: 29098794
DOI: 10.1002/jcsm.12261 -
Molecular Biology of the Cell Nov 2019For scientific research to have an impact, its findings need to be communicated. Usually, such communications take the form of published papers in a journal. Given that...
For scientific research to have an impact, its findings need to be communicated. Usually, such communications take the form of published papers in a journal. Given that most papers are rarely cited, yet consume a great deal of a scientist's time, treasure, and talent, the value of scientific publication as an enterprise merits consideration. What is a paper really worth? In this Perspective, I consider three potential values: career, science, and society.
Topics: Communication; Journal Impact Factor; Publications; Publishing; Research Support as Topic; Science
PubMed: 31671036
DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E19-08-0458