The Bangkok Medical Journal is committed to ethical research, fair peer review, editorial independence, and the integrity of the scholarly record. Authors, reviewers, editors, journal staff, and the publisher share responsibility for maintaining these standards. The journal draws on guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), the World Medical Association (WMA), and the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), as applicable.

Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must submit original work, accurately report methods and findings, and acknowledge sources appropriately. Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, misleading image manipulation, and concealment of relevant findings are unacceptable. Conclusions must be supported by the evidence, and personal opinions must be clearly identified.

Authorship should follow the ICMJE criteria. All listed authors must make qualifying contributions, approve the final manuscript, and accept accountability for the work. Contributors who do not qualify for authorship should be acknowledged with their permission. Requests to change authorship must include an explanation and the agreement of all affected authors.

Manuscripts must not be submitted to another journal while under consideration by The Bangkok Medical Journal. Authors must disclose related publications, overlapping manuscripts, and any prior dissemination, including preprints, so that the editors can assess originality and potential duplication.

Authors must disclose funding, relevant financial and non-financial competing interests, and the role of sponsors in the research and preparation of the manuscript. Technical, administrative, and other assistance should be acknowledged appropriately.

Authors remain responsible for the accuracy of the final article, including editorial changes they approve. Significant errors discovered after publication must be reported promptly to the journal, and authors must cooperate with any necessary investigation or correction.

Responsibilities of Editors and Journal Staff

Editors assess manuscripts fairly according to scientific merit, relevance, methodological quality, and ethical standards. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final publication decision, informed by reviewer reports and editorial advice. Decisions must remain independent of commercial interests and institutional relationships.

Submitted manuscripts and editorial correspondence are confidential. Access is restricted to individuals who need the information for editorial assessment, publication, or the investigation of an ethical concern. Unpublished information must not be used for personal advantage.

Editors must disclose competing interests and withdraw from handling manuscripts when impartiality may be affected. Submissions by editors or editorial board members must be handled by an independent editor; the submitting editor must not participate in reviewer selection or publication decisions concerning their own work.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have appropriate expertise and sufficient time. They must disclose potential competing interests and decline or withdraw when an impartial assessment is not possible.

Reviews must be objective, constructive, respectful, and supported by clear reasoning. Reviewers should evaluate the methods, evidence, originality, clarity, and scientific or clinical relevance of the manuscript, and alert the editors to suspected ethical concerns or substantial overlap with other work.

Manuscripts and review reports must remain confidential. Reviewers must not share a manuscript or involve another person in its assessment without editorial permission, contact authors directly about the review, or use unpublished information for personal benefit.

Responsibilities of the Publisher

Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS), as the publisher, supports the journal’s editorial independence and the resources needed for responsible publication. Publisher support, institutional publicity, and financial considerations must not influence reviewer selection or decisions to accept or reject manuscripts.

The publisher supports the editorial team in addressing ethical concerns and publishing corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions when necessary to protect the integrity of the scholarly record.

Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants, identifiable human material, or identifiable personal data must comply with applicable ethical and legal requirements and the WMA Declaration of Helsinki, including its 2024 revision, as applicable to the study. Relevant CIOMS guidelines and the WMA Declaration of Taipei should also be considered where appropriate.

Authors must identify the approving Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board and state the approval number and approval date in the manuscript. If the approval document does not provide a number or date, authors must explain this and provide supporting documentation for editorial assessment. Authors must also describe the informed consent arrangements. Any exemption from ethical review or waiver of informed consent must be determined by the appropriate authority and explained in the manuscript. Supporting documentation must be provided when requested by the journal.

Participant privacy must be protected. Identifiable patient information or images require appropriate written consent for publication. Consent to participate in research does not automatically constitute consent to publish identifiable information.

Research Involving Animals

Animal research must comply with applicable animal welfare requirements and receive approval from the appropriate ethics committee where required. Authors must identify the approving body and relevant protocol or licence number, or explain an applicable exemption. Manuscripts should describe measures to minimize suffering and should follow relevant reporting guidance, including the ARRIVE guidelines.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding Disclosure

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose relationships or interests that could affect, or reasonably appear to affect, their judgment. These may include employment, consultancy, honoraria, stock ownership, patents, personal relationships, or academic competition. The journal assesses disclosures and manages conflicts through measures such as independent handling or replacement of reviewers. A declared conflict does not automatically prevent publication.

Plagiarism and Publication Malpractice

The journal screens manuscripts using iThenticate. A similarity score above 20% prompts editorial assessment but does not, by itself, establish plagiarism. Editors assess the nature, extent, and context of overlapping material.

Unacceptable research and publication practices include:

• Plagiarism: Using another person’s text, ideas, data, or images without appropriate attribution.
• Data fabrication: Inventing data, observations, or results and presenting them as genuine.
• Data falsification: Manipulating research materials, methods, data, or results, including unjustified omission, in ways that misrepresent the research.
• Misleading image manipulation: Creating or altering images in ways that distort clinical observations or research findings.
• Duplicate or redundant publication: Republishing substantially overlapping work without appropriate disclosure, justification, and acknowledgement of the original publication.
• Simultaneous submission: Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.
• Inappropriate authorship: Including individuals who do not meet authorship criteria, excluding qualifying contributors, or changing authorship without appropriate explanation and agreement.
• Undisclosed conflicts of interest or funding: Concealing relevant relationships, financial or material support, or the role of sponsors.
• Peer-review manipulation: Using false reviewer identities, fabricated reviews, or undisclosed arrangements intended to compromise independent assessment.
• Citation manipulation: Including or requesting citations for the purpose of artificially increasing citation counts rather than supporting the scholarly content.
• Ethical breaches in research: Conducting research without required ethical approval or consent, or failing to protect participant privacy and confidentiality.

Suspected misconduct is assessed on the available evidence through the procedures described below. An allegation or similarity score alone does not establish misconduct. Authors are given an opportunity to respond before the journal determines appropriate action.

Handling Allegations of Research or Publication Misconduct

Concerns about submitted or published work may be reported to the editorial office with manuscript or article details and supporting evidence. The journal assesses concerns fairly and confidentially, using relevant COPE guidance. An allegation alone does not establish misconduct.

1. Initial assessment: An editor without a relevant conflict of interest reviews the concern and available evidence.
2. Case-specific committee: When the initial assessment identifies a concern requiring further examination, the matter is referred to the Editorial Board to appoint a committee of at least three members for that case. Members may be drawn from the editorial team and/or independent external experts with appropriate expertise. Anyone involved in the allegation or with a relevant conflict of interest must not participate in appointing the committee, assessing the case, or deciding its outcome.
3. Author response: The authors are informed of the concerns and given an opportunity to provide explanations and supporting documentation.
4. Assessment and referral: The committee evaluates the evidence and the authors’ responses and may seek additional independent advice. Concerns requiring a formal research investigation are referred to the appropriate institution or authority. The committee’s role is to assess the implications for the journal and the published record.
5. Editorial action: The committee documents its findings and recommendations. An editor without a relevant conflict of interest determines appropriate editorial action, which may include requesting clarification or correction, suspending consideration, rejecting a manuscript, or publishing a correction, expression of concern, or retraction.
6. Communication and records: The journal records the assessment and decision, communicates the outcome to relevant parties, and publishes a linked notice when action affecting the published record is necessary.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

The journal may publish a correction for errors that do not invalidate the main findings, an expression of concern when serious issues remain unresolved, or a retraction when findings are unreliable or serious ethical problems justify withdrawal from the scholarly record. Notices explain the reason for the action and are linked to the affected article. Retraction serves to correct the literature rather than punish authors.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by providing a clear explanation and supporting evidence to the editorial office. Complaints about editorial conduct may be submitted through the same contact. The matter will be assessed by an editor or responsible person who was not directly involved and has no relevant conflict of interest. Additional advice or review may be sought. An appeal does not guarantee reversal of the original decision.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

At submission, authors must disclose whether AI-assisted technologies, including large language models, chatbots, or image-generation tools, were used in preparing the submitted work.

AI assistance with writing, translation, or language editing must be disclosed in the Acknowledgements section, identifying the tool, its version where available, and the purpose of its use. AI used in research methods, data analysis, or image processing must also be described in the Materials and Methods section in sufficient detail to permit assessment.

Authors must review and verify all AI-assisted content, including references, and take full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the final manuscript. AI tools must not be listed as authors.

AI must not be used to fabricate data or create or alter images in ways that misrepresent clinical observations or research findings. AI-generated illustrative material must be clearly identified in the figure legend, with the tool and purpose disclosed, and is subject to editorial assessment. Disclosure does not guarantee acceptance of such material.

Confidential manuscripts, unpublished data, or identifiable patient information must not be entered into AI tools without appropriate authorization and safeguards. Editors and reviewers must not upload confidential manuscripts or review materials to AI tools that cannot assure confidentiality. Any AI-assisted editorial or reviewer assessment requires prior editorial authorization and appropriate disclosure.

Suggested disclosure statement:

During preparation of this manuscript, the authors used [tool name and version] for [purpose]. The authors reviewed and edited the resulting content and take full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of the final manuscript.

Contact for Ethical Concerns

Editorial Office, The Bangkok Medical Journal
Email: bangkokmedjournal@bdms.co.th

Reference Guidelines

• COPE Core Practices
• ICMJE Recommendations
• WMA Declaration of Helsinki
• CIOMS International Ethical Guidelines (2016)
• ARRIVE Guidelines