Ethical Principles

Behavioral and Social Studies in Mental Health is committed to maintaining high standards of integrity, transparency, accountability, and ethical conduct throughout the publication process. The journal expects all parties involved in scholarly publishing, including authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher, to follow internationally accepted principles of research and publication ethics.

The journal considers ethical publishing to be a shared responsibility. Decisions concerning submission, peer review, revision, acceptance, publication, correction, and, when necessary, retraction are made with the aim of protecting the reliability of the scholarly record and the rights of authors, research participants, reviewers, and readers.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts represent original scholarly work and accurately report the research conducted. Data, analyses, results, and interpretations must not be fabricated, falsified, selectively manipulated, or presented in a misleading manner.

All individuals who have made substantial intellectual contributions to the work should be appropriately credited as authors. Individuals who have not made a meaningful scholarly contribution must not be listed as authors. All listed authors should approve the final version of the manuscript and agree to its submission and publication.

Authors are responsible for providing accurate information regarding authorship, institutional affiliations, funding, conflicts of interest, ethical approvals, and other relevant declarations. Any change in authorship after submission must be justified and approved by all affected authors and the journal.

Authors must properly acknowledge all sources that have influenced their work. Text, ideas, data, figures, tables, instruments, or other material originating from another source must be appropriately cited. Plagiarism, inappropriate paraphrasing, unattributed copying, and unauthorized use of another person's intellectual work are unacceptable.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Textual Overlap

Manuscripts submitted to the journal must be original and must not contain plagiarized material. The journal may use iThenticate to assess textual similarity and identify possible inappropriate overlap.

Similarity reports are interpreted carefully by the editorial team. A similarity percentage alone does not determine whether misconduct has occurred. References, standard terminology, methodological descriptions, institutional names, and commonly used scientific expressions may produce legitimate similarities. However, unattributed copying of distinctive text, arguments, interpretations, data, or findings may constitute plagiarism even when the overall similarity percentage is relatively low.

Authors must also avoid inappropriate reuse of substantial portions of their own previously published work without proper citation or disclosure. When previous publications are closely related to a submitted manuscript, authors should clearly identify and cite them.

Duplicate and Redundant Publication

A manuscript submitted to Behavioral and Social Studies in Mental Health should not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal.

Authors must not submit substantially the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time, and previously published work should not be submitted as a new publication unless a legitimate and clearly disclosed form of secondary publication is involved.

Redundant publication, duplicate publication, and inappropriate fragmentation of a single study into multiple minimally distinct publications may be considered unethical when they distort the scholarly record or unnecessarily duplicate published findings.

If a manuscript substantially overlaps with another submitted or published work, the relationship between the publications must be transparently disclosed to the editor.

Data Integrity and Research Records

Authors are responsible for the accuracy, reliability, and integrity of the data reported in their manuscripts.

Fabrication, falsification, selective alteration, manipulation, or intentional omission of data is prohibited. Statistical and qualitative analyses must be conducted and reported appropriately, and conclusions should be supported by the evidence presented.

The journal may request additional information, anonymized data, analysis details, research instruments, ethical documentation, or other materials when necessary to evaluate the integrity of a submission or investigate a concern.

Authors should retain relevant research records for an appropriate period in accordance with institutional, disciplinary, legal, and ethical requirements.

Research Involving Human Participants

Research involving human participants must be conducted in accordance with recognized ethical principles and applicable institutional or national requirements.

Where required, authors must obtain approval from an appropriate research ethics committee, institutional review board, or equivalent body before conducting the study. The manuscript should include sufficient information about the ethical approval, including the name of the approving body when appropriate.

Informed consent should be obtained from participants when required. For children, individuals with limited decision-making capacity, or other vulnerable populations, appropriate additional protections and consent or assent procedures must be followed.

Research participants' privacy, dignity, confidentiality, and personal information must be protected. Identifiable information should not be published unless it is scientifically necessary and appropriate consent for publication has been obtained.

Sensitive Mental Health Research

Because the journal publishes research in mental health and related behavioral and social fields, particular attention should be given to studies involving psychologically vulnerable individuals, clinical populations, trauma, self-harm, violence, abuse, stigma, or other sensitive subjects.

Authors should demonstrate that foreseeable risks to participants were appropriately minimized and that recruitment, consent, data collection, confidentiality, and referral procedures were ethically appropriate for the population studied.

Descriptions of sensitive topics should be scientifically justified and presented responsibly, without unnecessary stigmatization, sensationalism, or disclosure of identifiable personal information.

Informed Consent and Confidentiality

Authors must respect confidentiality throughout the research and publication process.

Where case reports, quotations, photographs, recordings, or detailed descriptions could permit identification of an individual, appropriate consent for publication must be obtained where required.

Removing a participant's name may not by itself guarantee anonymity. Authors should therefore avoid unnecessary inclusion of identifying demographic, clinical, geographic, occupational, or family information when such details could reasonably identify a participant.

Editors and reviewers must also treat submitted manuscripts and associated correspondence as confidential documents.

Conflicts of Interest

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose relationships or circumstances that could reasonably be perceived as influencing their judgment.

Potential conflicts may include financial relationships, employment, consultancy, institutional relationships, personal relationships, academic competition, intellectual commitments, or other interests relevant to the manuscript.

Having a conflict of interest does not automatically indicate misconduct. The essential requirement is transparency. The journal may take appropriate measures to manage disclosed conflicts and protect the independence of editorial and peer-review decisions.

Funding and Sponsorship

Authors should disclose all sources of financial or material support related to the research.

Where a funder or sponsor has had a role in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit the work for publication, that role should be clearly stated.

Funding arrangements must not interfere with accurate reporting of findings or the authors' responsibility for the scientific content of the manuscript.

Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

Editors are responsible for evaluating submitted manuscripts fairly, independently, and confidentially.

Editorial decisions should be based on the manuscript's scientific quality, originality, methodological adequacy, ethical compliance, relevance to the journal's scope, and contribution to knowledge. Decisions must not be influenced by authors' nationality, gender, institutional affiliation, personal relationships, or other irrelevant characteristics.

Editors must protect the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and should not use unpublished information obtained through the editorial process for personal research or professional advantage.

Where an editor has a significant conflict of interest concerning a manuscript, editorial responsibility should be transferred to another qualified editor.

Editors are also responsible for responding appropriately to credible concerns regarding research integrity or publication misconduct, whether those concerns arise before or after publication.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers play an important role in maintaining the scientific quality of the journal and are expected to provide objective, constructive, respectful, and evidence-based evaluations.

Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have sufficient expertise and can complete the review responsibly. If a reviewer identifies a conflict of interest that could affect impartiality, the reviewer should disclose it and decline the review when appropriate.

Manuscripts received for review are confidential. Reviewers must not share manuscripts, discuss their contents with unauthorized individuals, or use unpublished ideas, data, or findings for personal benefit.

Criticism should focus on the scholarly content of the manuscript. Personal criticism of authors is inappropriate.

Reviewers should also alert the editor if they identify possible plagiarism, duplicate publication, data irregularities, ethical concerns, or substantial overlap with other known work.

Peer-Review Integrity

The journal operates a double-blind anonymous peer-review process. The identities of authors and reviewers are concealed from each other during review.

The confidentiality and independence of this process must be respected by all parties. Attempts to manipulate peer review, influence reviewer selection improperly, identify anonymous reviewers, fabricate reviewer identities, submit fraudulent reviews, or interfere with editorial decision-making are considered serious breaches of publication ethics.

The journal may investigate suspected peer-review manipulation and take appropriate corrective action when necessary.

Citation Practices

References should be selected on the basis of their relevance to the manuscript.

Authors should not include unnecessary citations solely to increase citation counts or satisfy inappropriate requests. Reviewers and editors should not pressure authors to cite their own publications, the journal's publications, or unrelated literature unless the citations are genuinely relevant to improving the scholarly quality of the work.

Citation manipulation is inconsistent with the journal's ethical standards.

Image and Data Manipulation

Figures, photographs, charts, and other research materials must accurately represent the underlying data.

Adjustments to images may be acceptable when applied consistently and when they do not alter, conceal, introduce, or misrepresent scientifically relevant information.

Selective image manipulation, inappropriate duplication, undisclosed alteration, or creation of misleading visual evidence is not acceptable.

Where necessary, the journal may request original files or supporting documentation.

Use of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools

Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, and authorship of all submitted content, including material produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence or automated tools.

AI systems and other non-human tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot assume responsibility for the work, approve the final manuscript, or respond to ethical concerns.

Where AI-assisted tools have been used in a way that materially affects the preparation, analysis, interpretation, or presentation of a manuscript, such use should be disclosed appropriately.

Authors must carefully verify AI-assisted content and must not rely on automated systems to fabricate references, generate false data, misrepresent findings, or replace required human scholarly judgment.

Corrections and Post-Publication Changes

The journal is committed to maintaining an accurate scholarly record.

When a significant but correctable error is identified after publication, the journal may publish a correction or other appropriate notice. Minor errors that do not affect the interpretation or integrity of the article may be handled according to editorial judgment.

Authors are expected to inform the journal promptly if they discover a substantial error in their published work.

Post-publication changes should be transparent and should preserve the integrity of the published record.

Retractions and Expressions of Concern

Retraction may be considered when there is reliable evidence that published findings are seriously unreliable because of misconduct or major error, when plagiarism or duplicate publication has occurred, when unethical research is identified, or when another serious breach undermines confidence in the article.

An expression of concern may be published when substantial concerns exist but available evidence is not yet sufficient for a final determination.

Retraction and correction procedures are intended to protect the scholarly record rather than to punish individuals. Notices should clearly identify the affected article and explain the reason for the editorial action as transparently as circumstances permit.

Allegations of Research or Publication Misconduct

The journal takes credible allegations of misconduct seriously.

Concerns may relate to plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, authorship disputes, unethical research, undisclosed conflicts of interest, peer-review manipulation, duplicate publication, inappropriate image manipulation, or other serious breaches of scholarly integrity.

When a concern is raised, the journal may request explanations or supporting documentation from the relevant parties. Where appropriate, the journal may contact authors' institutions, ethics committees, funders, or other responsible bodies.

Investigations will be handled as confidentially and fairly as possible, and conclusions will not be reached solely on the basis of unsupported allegations.

Authorship Disputes

The journal expects authorship questions to be resolved among the contributors and, where necessary, through the authors' institutions.

The editorial office does not normally determine who should or should not qualify as an author. If a dispute arises before publication, processing of the manuscript may be suspended until satisfactory documentation or agreement is provided.

Requests to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must be clearly justified and normally require the agreement of all affected authors.

Complaints and Appeals

Authors may raise concerns about editorial or peer-review decisions when they believe a significant procedural or factual error has occurred.

Appeals should be based on specific scientific, methodological, ethical, or procedural grounds rather than simple disagreement with a decision.

Complaints concerning editorial conduct, peer review, conflicts of interest, or publication ethics will be reviewed as objectively as possible. Where appropriate, the matter may be referred to an editor who was not directly involved in the original decision.

Editorial Independence

Editorial decisions are made independently from financial considerations.

Payment of an Article Processing Charge does not influence whether a manuscript is accepted, rejected, sent for review, or treated favorably during the editorial process.

Commercial, institutional, or financial interests must not override scientific and ethical standards.

Commitment to the Scholarly Record

Behavioral and Social Studies in Mental Health is committed to correcting the literature when reliable evidence demonstrates that the published record is inaccurate or ethically compromised.

The journal regards transparency, accountability, confidentiality, fairness, research integrity, and responsible peer review as essential components of scholarly publishing. Authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher are expected to cooperate in addressing ethical concerns and preserving trust in the scientific record.