The Healthcare Quality Professionals Journal (HQPJ) is committed to maintaining high standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial independence, transparency, accountability, and responsible scholarly communication.
Authors, editors, reviewers, and other contributors are expected to act honestly and responsibly throughout the submission, peer-review, editorial, publication, and post-publication processes. Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, inappropriate authorship, duplicate publication, citation manipulation, undisclosed competing interests, unethical research practices, or other forms of publication malpractice are not acceptable.
General Principles of Publication Ethics
Submitted work should represent an original scholarly contribution and appropriately acknowledge previous research. Research methods, data, results, interpretations, and conclusions should be reported accurately without deliberate distortion.
Relevant funding, conflicts of interest, ethical approvals, limitations, data availability, and methodological information must be disclosed. Authors remain responsible for the integrity, accuracy, authorship, and reliability of published work.
Responsibilities of Authors
- Submit original scholarly work and report methods accurately.
- Cite relevant sources appropriately; avoid plagiarism and text reuse.
- Disclose relevant financial and professional conflicts of interest.
- Identify funding sources and institutional support where applicable.
- Obtain ethical approval and informed consent where required.
- Protect patient confidentiality and research participant privacy.
- Provide accurate authorship information (no gift or ghost authorship).
- Address data availability and legitimate access restrictions clearly.
- Cooperate with legitimate editorial inquiries and post-publication corrections.
Specific Ethical Violations
Data Fabrication & Falsification
Authors must not invent participants, observations, measurements, survey responses, clinical findings, or statistical results. Datasets, figures, and research records must not be altered, omitted, or manipulated to misrepresent findings.
Duplicate & Simultaneous Submissions
Substantially the same manuscript must not be submitted simultaneously to multiple journals or presented as a new publication if previously published. Preprints and conference papers must be disclosed upon submission.
Plagiarism and Improper Attribution
Authors must appropriately acknowledge the intellectual work of others. Plagiarism may involve text, ideas, methods, data, images, tables, research designs, or unpublished material:
- Direct Copying: Copying substantial text without proper quotation or attribution.
- Unattributed Paraphrasing: Rewriting another author’s ideas without acknowledging the original source.
- Improper Reuse: Presenting substantial previously published material as new without citation.
- Misappropriation: Using another researcher’s unpublished ideas or material without authorization.
Human Participants, Patient Privacy & Clinical Trials
Human Participants
Requires ethics approval, voluntary participation, informed consent, and responsible risk management for medical records, surveys, or clinical interventions.
Patient Privacy
Protect patient confidentiality. Remove unnecessary identifiers and obtain explicit consent where identifiable images or records are necessary for publication.
Clinical Trials & Animals
Clinical studies must report trial registration details transparently. Animal research must comply with institutional, ethical, and animal-welfare regulations.
Data Integrity, Figures & AI Technology Use
Visual Data & Image Manipulation
Figures, clinical images, photographs, charts, and graphs must accurately represent the underlying evidence. Images must not be deceptively manipulated, and duplicate images must not misrepresent findings.
Generative AI & AI-Assisted Tools
AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Material AI use must be disclosed transparently. AI must not fabricate research data or references, and authors remain fully accountable for AI-assisted content.
Responsibilities of Editors & Reviewers
- Evaluate manuscripts strictly on scholarly merit and objective criteria.
- Maintain peer-review confidentiality and protect author/reviewer identities.
- Manage editorial conflicts of interest and maintain editorial independence.
- Take proportionate action on credible publication-misconduct concerns.
- Treat manuscripts as confidential documents and declare conflicts of interest.
- Provide objective, constructive, evidence-based, and respectful evaluations.
- Do not appropriate unpublished ideas or data for personal advantage.
- Identify serious ethical concerns, plagiarism, or citation manipulation.
The journal maintains zero tolerance for unethical publication practices. Examples of malpractice include:
- Fabrication or falsification of research data
- Plagiarism and inappropriate text reuse
- Duplicate publication and simultaneous submission
- Gift, ghost, or guest authorship
- Undisclosed conflicts of interest and citation manipulation
- False ethical approval or consent statements
- Deceptive image manipulation and peer review tampering
- Misuse of confidential manuscript files
Handling Allegations of Misconduct
Initial Assessment
Evaluate if the concern is credible, specific, and relevant to a submitted or published work.
Evidence Review
Review available manuscripts, datasets, correspondence, reports, or source material.
Author Clarification
Contact relevant authors to request explanations, raw data, or supporting documentation.
Editorial Evaluation
Assess all available evidence objectively, proportionately, and impartially.
Appropriate Action
Determine the appropriate editorial response (Clarification, Rejection, Correction, or Retraction).
Corrections, Expressions of Concern & Retractions
| Notice Type | Description & Application |
|---|---|
| Correction | Issued when an identifiable error requires correction but the overall research findings remain sufficiently reliable. |
| Expression of Concern | Considered when significant concerns exist regarding paper integrity, but sufficient evidence for a final conclusion is not yet available. |
| Retraction | Appropriate when findings are seriously unreliable because of scientific misconduct, major error, unethical research, plagiarism, or substantial integrity problems. |
Honest Error vs. Misconduct
Good-faith errors or scientific disagreements do not automatically constitute research misconduct. Good-faith errors will be corrected transparently, while scientific disagreements are evaluated on scholarly merits.
Complaints & Appeals Process
Authors, reviewers, or readers may raise reasoned complaints or appeals regarding editorial decisions or ethical matters through official journal channels. Appeals are reviewed objectively without retaliation.
Submission or publication in Healthcare Quality Professionals Journal (HQPJ) requires authors, reviewers, and editors to maintain scholarly honesty, research integrity, confidentiality, transparency, and ethical responsibility. Credible concerns involving plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate authorship, manipulated peer review, unethical research, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, or other serious malpractice may result in investigation, revision, rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or another appropriate editorial response.