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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Survey of instructions to authors in Indian and

British Dental Journals with respect to ethical
guidelines

Mathur VP, Dhillon JK, Kalra G, Sharma A,

Abstract
Mathur R
Background: Publication can become a symbol of presenting Division of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Centre for
Dental Education and Research, All India Institute of Medical
how meticulously a person has followed ethical principles Sciences, New Delhi, India
in research. It is the duty of the investigators or authors
to carefully read the instructions to authors and generate Correspondence:
data with honesty and genuineness. In fulfillment of the Dr. Jatinder Kaur Dhillon, Division of Pedodontics
basic requisite to publish, clearly defined instructions to and Preventive Dentistry, Centre for Dental Education
and Research, All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
authors should be provided by the journal. Aims: To New Delhi - 110 029, India.
assess the pattern of instructions regarding the ethical E-mail: dr.jatinderdhillon@gmail.com
requirements given to authors in Indian Dental Journals
and tried to compare the same with British Dental Journals.
Access this article online
Settings and Design: A cross-sectional survey of ‘instructions
Quick Response Code:
for authors,’ for analysis of guidelines on ethical processes, Website:
was done. Materials and Methods: Instructions to authors www.jisppd.com

of Indian and British Dental Journals indexed in PubMed DOI:

10.4103/0970-4388.115711
were reviewed for guidelines with regard to seven key ethical
PMID:
issues. Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics were
***
used and results were expressed in percentages as well as
numbers. Results: Of the 10 Indian Dental Journals, 7 (70%)
cited ethical guidelines such as International Committee of
Medical Journal Editors, Committee on Publication Ethics, Key words
Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines whereas out of
27 British Dental Journals, 16 (59.25%) cited these. Protection Ethics, instructions to authors, journal
of human subjects such as approval from an institutional/
independent ethics committee, obtaining informed consent
and maintenance of confidentiality of patient records was Introduction
covered with 8 (80%) Indian and 19 (70.3%) British Dental
Journals. Four (40%) Indian and 13 (48.1%) instructed about Publications can be considered as a mouthpiece of one’s
animals welfare. Nine (90%) of the Indian and 25 (92.5%) research. Research gets validated and accepted as quality
British Dental Journals required declaration of conflicts
work only after publication in reputed peer reviewed
of interest by authors. Publication issues and authorship/
contributorship criteria were specified by all 10 Indian and
Journals. Reporting ethical procedures followed in one’s
25 (92.5%) and 24 (88.8%) British journals respectively. publication are an extension of good research practices.
6 (60%) of Indian and 11 (40.75%) of British Journals There has been a long debate on ethics in medical sciences
explained about data management, in case of clinical trials. in terms of practice, research and education. It is important
Conclusions: A significant proportion of Indexed Indian and to ensure that the clinicians or researchers follow ethical
British Dental Journals did not provide adequate instructions principles in carrying out their clinical responsibilities or
to authors regarding ethical issues.
in research work and also in their publication practices.

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Mathur, et al.: Ethical issues in instructions to authors
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had
prepared the revised Ethical Guidelines for biomedical
research on human participants in the year 2006 which
describes the 12 general principles for conducting any
biomedical research involving human participants.[1]
According to one of the principles, all results of research
must be made known to the public through scientific
and other publications. However, it is imperative that
privacy and confidentiality of the participants in the
study should be maintained while publishing both
positive as well as negative results of a study.[1]
Research on laboratory animals must also follow the
ethical norms and requirements in order to avoid
any unnecessary pain and suffering to them. [2,3]
The Committee for the Control and Supervision of
Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA)[4] has prepared
guidelines which describe the various procedures for
maintaining and conducting experiments involving all
permitted species of animals for research.
Inspite of guidelines for research being in place, in the
present scenario, enough information is not available in
literature on the actual existence, status and functioning
of the institutional ethics committees in many of the
universities imparting dental education and carrying
out research in the country. However it is generally
understood and recognized that the fundamental
principles of ethics in human and animal research
needs to be followed while conducting a research and
it should be reported by the researcher at the time of
publishing the study.[1]
Similarly, issues like methods for obtaining informed
consent, management of conflict of interest and
method of analysis of data are not being reported in
most of articles being published. Researchers have a
responsibility to make sure that the public is accurately
informed about the ethical safeguards in place while
describing the methods of conducting the study
along with its results without raising false hopes or
expectations.
Some of the eminent researchers and editors believe
that the journal office or the editors can play an
important role in presenting the fact that ethical
principles were followed during a research.[5,6]
The issue of ethics in research and publication has not
taken enough attention of Indian dental researchers
and there are hardly any articles on this topic in
Indian Dental Journals. On the other hand, at some
108 JOURNAL OF INDIAN SOCIETY OF PEDODONTICS AND PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY | Apr - Jun 2013 | Issue 2 | Vol 31 |
of the instances, papers have been withdrawn due to
non-following of some of the ethical principles during
publications in Indian as well as foreign journals. One
such example of fraudulent publication from one of the
medical colleges in India, published in the Saudi Journal
of Anesthesiology grabbed the attention of its editors
and immediate retraction of the article was done after
formal notification.[7] Another nerve wrecking instance
of such misconduct was witnessed when an article
originally published in the Journal of Applied Oral
Sciences, 2008 was facsimiled and reproduced by Indian
authors and got published in Gerodontology, 2012.[8]
Such distressing illustrations bring a bad name not only
to the research output by the scientific community but
also to the whole country in general.
The International Committee of Medical Journal
Editors[9] had also prepared a set of requirements on
the basis of credit and accountability for authors who
have made substantial contributions and would also
take responsibility for the paper.
It is the duty of the investigators or authors to carefully
read the instructions to authors and generate data with
honesty and genuineness. In fulfillment of the basic
requisite to publish, clearly defined instructions to
authors should be provided by the journal. Publication
can become a symbol of presenting how meticulously
a person has followed ethical principles in research.
Keeping this in mind, an attempt has been made to
review the instructions provided to authors in Indian
Dental Journals with regards to some of the key
ethical issues. The present study has been planned
to assess the pattern of instructions regarding the
ethical requirements given to authors in Indian Dental
Journals and tried to compare the same with British
Dental Journals.
Materials and Methods
Literature search
A cross sectional study was carried out in the first week
of June, 2012. The search was carried out on PubMed,
Google scholar and institutional library to identify any
literature reporting a survey of instructions to authors
among different dental journals. The keywords ‘Indian’,
‘dental’, ‘journal’, ‘survey of instructions to authors’
were used for online search and several studies[10-17]
were found. Amongst these, we found that there was
one study, which covered 126 dental journals including
Indian Dental Journals.[13] However, this study covered
only protection of human and animal rights in terms of
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Mathur, et al.: Ethical issues in instructions to authors
ethical issues. After confirming that there is no article
available on the survey of instructions to authors
in Indian dental journals with respect to all ethical
guidelines for reporting, it was decided to conduct a
study with an aim to create awareness among Indian
dental professionals and editors on this important
topic. Ethical approval was not required for this study
as it does not constitute biomedical research or involve
human or animal subjects. All the information used in
the study was available in the public domain.
Journal sample
After considering several approaches for selecting a
standard sample of journals, it was decided to use
the list of journals indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE,
(a bibliographic database of National Library of
Medicine®).[18] The NLM catalog website (http://
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog) was searched using
keyword “dentistry” and setting limits as “only PubMed
indexed Journals”. A list of 1154 dental journals was
obtained which were then sorted according to country
of publication. There were 21 journals that were listed
as published from India. The journals discontinued or no
longer indexed in MEDLINE were excluded from this
list and finally eight journals were selected. A similar
search using keywords “PubMed”, “dentistry”, “Indian
journals” elicited two more journals to be included in
our list. Thus, a total of 10 Indian Indexed Dental
Journals were included in the study. The same method
was used finding out and then excluding discontinued
journals for British Dental Journals indexed in PubMed
and a final list of 28 journals was selected for inclusion
in the study.
Survey of instructions to authors
The instructions to authors were obtained from the
websites of all the journals and saved in the computer
for analysis. Then the instructions to authors were
analyzed for seven ethical issues namely: (1) Whether
ethical guidelines such as International Committee
of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), Committee on
Publication Ethics (COPE), ICMR guidelines were
cited, (2) protection of human subjects such as approval
from an institutional/independent ethics committee,
obtaining informed consent and maintenance of
confidentiality of patient records, (3) protecting animal
welfare, (4) declaration of conflicts of interest (COI) by
authors, (5) publication issues (redundant, fragmented
or overlapping publications, and plagiarism),
(6) authorship/contributorship criteria specified,
and (7) data management in case of clinical trials
and epidemiological studies such as conforming to
JOURNAL OF INDIAN SOCIETY OF PEDODONTICS AND PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY | Apr - Jun 2013 | Issue 2 | Vol 31 |
CONSORT or STROBE requirements and registration
in a clinical trial registry. The content of the instructions
was coded by one author according to the presence or
absence of each criterion separately. Instructions of a
journal were considered ‘ethically compliant’ when all
of the seven ethical issues were mentioned; ‘partially
compliant’ when they lacked between one and six ethical
requirements as stated above and ‘non-compliant’ when
all seven ethical issues were not stated. The data was
entered by one author and cross checked by another
author. Then the whole table was randomly re-checked
by the third author.
Results
Characteristics of journals
Amongst the ten Indian journals in the sample, eight
had their own website while two were hosted on the
website for M/s Springer. Eight of these journals
represented professional dental societies; one was
published by a university and another by a commercial
publisher. Eight of these journals were specialty
dental journals and remaining two were general dental
journals. The number of issues published by the journal
ranged from 2 to 6 per year. All the journals used an
online manuscript submission system.
Amongst the 28 British journals in the sample, one
journal has been discontinued at the time of writing
this paper. Of the remaining 27 journals, 14 were official
publications of professional dental bodies, 11 were
published by commercial publishers and two were
open access journals. Amongst these 17 were specialty
journals, two were on basic sciences and rest eight
were general dental journals. The number of issues
published for 25 journals ranged from 4 to 24 per year.
The remaining two journals were open access, so there
were no issues, but the articles were posted online as
they were accepted. The distribution of specialty or
general dental journal and availability and contents
of instructions to authors with respect to seven ethical
issues are presented in Tables 1 and 2 respectively.
Discussion
The primary purpose of this study was to survey
availability and content of instructions to authors in
Indian Dental Journals indexed in MEDLINE with
regards to seven ethical issues and compare these with
British Dental Journals indexed in MEDLINE. Our
hypothesis was that the instructions to authors in
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Mathur, et al.: Ethical issues in instructions to authors

Table 1: List of all Journals included in the survey

Indian British
Contemporary Clinical Dentistry Archives of Oral Biology The European Journal of Prosthodontics Journal of Dentistry
and Restorative Dentistry
Journal of Contemporary Dental Practice BMC Oral Health Gerodontology Journal of Esthetic and Restorative
Dentistry
Journal of Maxillofacial and Oral Surgery British Dental Journal Head and Face Medicine Journal of Oral Rehabilitation
Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology Community Dental Health International Dental Journal Journal of Orthodontics
Journal of Forensic Dental Sciences Dental Materials International Endodontic Journal Oral Health and Preventive Dentistry
Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Dental Update International Journal of Computerized Orthodontics and Craniofacial
Preventive Dentistry Dentistry Research
Indian Journal of Dental Research Dento Maxillo Facial Radiology International Journal of Dental Hygiene Evidence-based Dentistry
Journal of the Indian Society of Periodontology European Archives of Pediatric Dentistry International Journal of Paediatric Dentistry
The Journal of Indian Prosthodontic Society European Journal of Oral Implantology The Journal of Adhesive Dentistry
Journal of Conservative Dentistry European Journal of Orthodontics Journal of Dental Biomechanics
BMC=BioMed central

Table 2: Ethical issues in instructions to authors in the journals included in the survey
Ethical issues Indian N1=10 British N2=27 Total N1+N2=37
Compliant Non-compliant Compliant Non-compliant Compliant Non-compliant
N (%) N (%) N (%) N (%) N (%) N (%)
Citation of international or national ethical guidelines such as 7 (70) 3 (30) 16 (59.25) 11 (40.75) 23 (62.2) 14 (37.8)
ICMJE, ICMR, COPE guidelines for research ethics
Protection of human rights including declaration of Helsinki, 8 (80) 2 (20) 19 (70.3) 8 (29.7) 27 (73) 10 (27)
informed consent, ethical committee approval
Protection of animals 4 (40) 6 (60) 13 (48.1) 14 (51.9) 17 (45.9) 20 (54.1)
Declaration of conflicts of interest 9 (90) 1 (10) 25 (92.5) 2 (7.5) 34 (91.9) 3 (8.1)
Publication issues e.g., dual submission, salami publication etc., 10 (100) 0 (0) 25 (92.5) 2 (7.5) 35 (94.6) 2 (5.4)
Authorship issues 10 (100) 0 (0) 24 (88.8) 3 (10.2) 34 (91.9) 3 (8.1)
Data management 6 (60) 4 (40) 11 (40.75) 16 (59.25) 17 (45.9) 20 (54.1)
*The figures in brackets indicate percentage of journals. ICMJE=International Committee of Medical Journal Editors; ICMR=Indian Council of Medical Research; COPE=Committee on Publication Ethics

Indian Dental Journals sufficiently covers the ethical

issues and are comparable with that of British Dental
Journals.

The results of this study suggest that ethical issues in

the guidelines for authors of journals in both Indian as
well as British Dental Journals are not clearly defined.
Only three Indian and seven British Dental Journals
were found to be ethically compliant. [Figure 1]
Guidelines of many journals in the present study
are mainly concerned with manuscript preparation.
Publication issues are explicitly mentioned by all
Indian and 24 British Dental Journals. This may be
due to emphasis on avoiding plagiarism, maintaining
originality and avoiding copyright infringement. Figure 1: Representing compliant and non-compliant Indian and British
Journals with respect to ethical issues

Wager (2007)[19] carried out a survey of 234 biomedical

journals and reported that 41% journals gave no
guidance about authorship in the author instructions.
This is in contrast to the present study where
authorship criteria are mentioned in all Indian and
25 British journals. This may be due to the fact that
everyone wants credit for their work and the number
of publications reflects upon the productivity of the
clinician. The journals might also wish to avoid disputes
arising later on due to conflicts amongst authors.
Mahatma Gandhi has said “The greatness of a nation
and its moral progress can be judged by the way its
animals are treated.” However, this is not reflected in
the instructions to authors by many journals in this

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Mathur, et al.: Ethical issues in instructions to authors
study. Only 4 Indian and 13 British Dental Journals
cited guidelines for protection of animals used in the
study. This lags behind the protection of human rights
since 8 Indian and 19 British journals have mentioned
about it. Block et al., (2006)[11] reviewed all reports of
research involving human subjects published in thoracic
surgery journals. They observed that there has been
a significant increase in mention of ethical process
over a period of three years. However, it is still not
ideal. The present study also reflects similar results.
Navaneetha (2011)[13] surveyed online instructions to
authors of 126 International Indexed Dental Journals
to analyze whether these journals required reporting
of ethical isuues such as Ethics Committee Approval
for human and animal research, obtaining informed
consent/assent from the research participants and
whether the research was done in accordance with the
Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) as well as International
ethical guidelines. It was observed in this study that
45.23% journals reported ethical approval, 34.92%
journals mentioned that research should be conducted
in accordance with the DoH and International ethical
guidelines. 30.15% dental journals instructed the authors
to obtain informed consent from human subjects;
however, only 26.19% required obtaining approval from
the animal ethics committee. These are quite similar
to the present study in which protection of animals is
not emphasized upon in instructions to authors in the
surveyed journals as compared to protection of human
subjects. It was also noted that the Indian journals had
provided a reference to the International Guidelines like
DoH, however, had not provided reference to the ICMR
Guidelines. The consciousness about patients’ rights is
increasing. In clinical research, it is important to state the
national or international guidelines that were followed
and whether the study had received an approved from
an ethics committee. The distinction between public and
professional reading is diminishing and has led to an
increased emphasis on the concept of informed consent,
protection of human subjects’ confidentiality.
Most of the journals included in the study require
disclosure of Conflicts of Interest. This is in
accordance with World Association of Medical
Editors guidelines.[20] According to these guidelines,
COI policies of a journal should be “readily accessible
to everyone involved in the publication process by
publishing them with instructions for authors.” Blum
et al., (2009)[21] carried out a study to determine the
prevalence of author COI policies, requirements for
signed disclosure statements, and variability in COI
definitions among medical journals. They observed
JOURNAL OF INDIAN SOCIETY OF PEDODONTICS AND PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY | Apr - Jun 2013 | Issue 2 | Vol 31 |
that most medical journals with relatively high impact
factors had easily accessible COI policies. This is
similar to the results of the present study. Failure to
disclose COI might result in publication bias of the
journals. If discovered later, it spoils the reputation
of the journal as well as the researcher. Any forms
of research misconduct may lead to deterioration
of patient physician relationship and loss of public
trust in biomedical research. It is therefore the moral
responsibility of journals to regulate author’s behavior
and their publications.
The CONSORT statement has been used for several
years as an accepted guideline for reporting randomized
controlled trials. It constitutes a minimum set of
recommendations to be followed for reporting trial
findings thus facilitating transparency in reporting as well
as making it easier for reviewers to critically appraise and
readers to interpret results of the trial.[22] CONSORT
has been endorsed by several hundred medical journals,
and international editorial groups, such as the ICMJE. In
the present study, it was observed that only six Indian and
11 British Dental Journals provided guidelines regarding
data management. This is in conjunction with the study
by Li et al., (2012)[23] on endorsement of the CONSORT
Statement by high-impact medical journals in China. In
another study conducted by Hopewell et al., (2008)[24]
a total of 165 journals were surveyed which included
top five journals from each of the 33 medical specialties
and the top 15 journals for general and internal medicine
based on journal impact factor. Only 38% of journals
mentioned the CONSORT Statement in their online
‘Instructions to Authors’.
In this study, it was observed that most of the journals
do not have clearly defined guidelines for authors and
some key issues such as data management, patient’s
consent, protection of subjects are no adequately
emphasized. These results are similar to those of
a study by Pitak-Arnnop et al., (2010) [10] which
compared ethical issues in the guidelines for authors in
oral-craniomaxillofacial facial plastic surgery journals,
plastic surgery journals and otorhinolaryngology/
head and neck surgery journals. They reported that
only 8.3% journals mentioned all ethical issues in their
guidelines for authors.
Limitations of this study
Firstly, this study is potentially subjective as it focused only
on the ethical requirements described in the instructions to
authors so the results may not reflect the actual editorial
practice. Secondly, the guidelines were collected in a
particular time frame so they might not be applicable
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Mathur, et al.: Ethical issues in instructions to authors
to other years. Thirdly, only PubMed/MEDLINE
indexed journals were included in this analysis. Other
indexing databases were not included. Some journals are
currently in the process of being indexed, so these were
not considered. This might underestimate the number of
journals. Moreover, the present study was not designed to
explain the laxity of ethical issues encountered.
Conclusions
Despite the limitations cited, the study findings
demonstrate that a significant proportion of Indian
and British Dental Journals do not provide information
regarding ethical issues concerning research involving
humans as well as animals. It should be made mandatory
to report that these issues have been followed rigorously
while submitting a manuscript to ensure that there is
no research misconduct. The ‘Instructions to Authors’
should clearly specify and elaborate upon these topics.
The authors should be required to complete a checklist
which reports these issues while submitting their
research to the journals. Moreover, there is a growing
need for educating researchers and reviewers regarding
the importance of reporting on these issues. The
journal websites should provide external links to sites
which provide national and international guidelines for
conduct and reporting of research.
The instructions to authors provided by journals play
a pivotal role in encouraging scientific integrity. It is
essential that Indian as well as British Dental Journals
amend instructions to authors, have checkpoints to
avoid ethical breaches, and implement ‘must have’
measures to further improve the standards of research
being published by them.
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How to cite this article: Mathur VP, Dhillon JK, Kalra G, Sharma
A, Mathur R. Survey of instructions to authors in Indian and British
Dental Journals with respect to ethical guidelines. J Indian Soc
Pedod Prev Dent 2013;31:107-12.
Source of Support: Nil, Conflict of Interest: None declared.