[Ethics relevance in Brazilian medical journals]

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the Brazilian journals cited by the four CAPES medical areas, qualified as 'A' national or 'I' international, regarding the relevance given to ethics in the instructions for authors.

Methods: The instructions for authors of twenty Brazilian journals were studied and 36 types of ethical concerns were identified allowing the following categorization: I - Ethics in human research; II - Scientific integrity; III - Editorial policy.

Results: The results on Category I show that the most frequent instructions (50%) requires previous approval of the research by a institutional Ethics Committee (CEP), followed by indication on how to cite this approval in the body of the article (35%), plus presentation of a copy of the CEP approval (30%). However, none advert on the importance of the CEP being recognized by the CONEP. On Category II, 55% of the journal require declarations of conflict of interest, and 40% of them inquire about the type of interest; however, all (100%) journal do not mention prevention conflict of interests between authors and peer reviewers, neither on frauds, plagiarisms or data fabrication. Finally, in Category III, 65% of the journals require the authors to transfer publications rights to them, while the remaining 35% do not mention copyright

Conclusion: These results are discussed in relations to the Brazilian present situation regarding ethics in the scientific production of researches using human subjects for the prevention of scientific dishonesty.