Acknowledgements and Conflicts of interest Dr Gurpreet Kaur Associate Professor Dept of Pharmacology Government Medical College Amritsar

Acknowledgements

Authorship based on… 1. Substantial contributions to conception or design of work; or acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data 2. Drafting work or revising it critically for important intellectual content 3. Final approval of version to be published 4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of work - related to accuracy or integrity of any part of work to be appropriately investigated and resolved Acknowledged - who do not meet all four criteria

Who all can be acknowledged… If, in your research, you received any significant help in - Thinking up concept, - Designing, or - Carrying out the work, or - Received materials from someone as a favor - General supervision of a research group/ general administrative support - Colleagues have read the paper and have made some comments - Writing assistance, technical and language editing, proof reading With prior written permission

General Guidelines… Always brief and never flowery Full name of all individuals Usual style requirements are relaxed somewhat (like 1st person, objectivity) A brief statement as to what kind of help the writer has received Some funding bodies provide guidelines as to how their contribution should be credited If ethical clearance or some other permission is needed, it is often stated in the acknowledgements that such permission has been granted

How to specify their contributions… - ‘served as scientific advisors’ - ‘critically reviewed the study proposal’ - ‘collected the data’ - ‘provided and cared for study patients’ - ‘participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript’

Example 1 I gratefully acknowledge the support and generosity of Indian Council of Medical Research, without which the present study could not have been completed.

Example 2 The research for this paper was financially supported by the Indian Council of Medical Research, grant no /540. In developing the ideas presented here, I have received helpful inputs from Navjot Kaur and Harish Negi. I also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their feedback.

The author whishes to thank Ritu Malhotra for collecting the data; Navjot Kaur and Harish Negi for their assistance in conducting the laboratory tests; Avanish Pandey for the statistics; and interpreting the data and Nirmaljit Kaur for helping with writing and editing the article. The question is straightforward: Which is the contribution of author of the paper?

Conflict of Interest

A COI exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest may be influenced by a secondary interest Perceptions of COI are as important as actual COI Might bias or be seen to bias the work Consequence of COI is especially dangerous when it is not immediately apparent to others

Significance… Public trust in scientific process and credibility of published articles depend in part on how transparently COI are handled during - - Planning - Implementation - Writing - Peer review - Editing - Publication of scientific work

Easily identifiable Most likely to undermine the credibility of the journal, authors, and of science itself - - Financial relationships –Honoraria, Patents, Paid expert testimony, Stock ownership - Institutional affiliations -Employment - Academic commitments - Intellectual beliefs - Personal relationships - Political or religious beliefs

About of biomedical investigators at academic institutions receive research funding from Industry. ( Blumenthal et al. N Engl J Med. 1996) Extent of problem…

Roseman et al. Reporting of conflicts of interest from drug trials in Cochrane reviews: cross sectional study. BMJ 2012; 345. Of 151 Cochrane reviews studied, 46 (30.5%) reported information on funding sources, including 30 (20%) - trial funding Only 16/151 (10.6%) Cochrane reviews provided any information on trial author-industry financial ties or trial author-industry employment. Under reporting…

Lead authors in 1 of every 3 articles published held back relevant financial interests. (Krimsky et al. Psychother Psychosom.1998)

Articles should be published with statements or supporting documents, like ICMJE COI form, declaring: Authors’ COI Sources of support for the work, including ◦ Sponsor names with role of those sources if any ◦ Writing of the report ◦ Decision to submit the report for publication ◦ A statement declaring that supporting source had no such involvement Whether the authors had access to study data, explaining the nature and extent of access, including whether access is on-going.

COI Policies… Differ among journals and are evolving over time. Every peer-reviewed medical journal should have its own COI policies for authors, reviewers, & editors. Readily accessible to everyone involved in publication process. Publishing them with Instructions for Authors.

Developed a Form for Disclosure of COI to facilitate and standardize authors’ disclosures ICMJE member journals require that authors use this form, and ICMJE encourages other journals to adopt it Interactive downloadable pdf file is available for generating disclosure statement