Retraction policy

The infringement of the legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), the violation of professional ethical codes and research misconduct, such as multiple submissions, duplicate or overlapping publication, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and data fabrication, honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty), unethical research or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication. The main reason for withdrawal or retraction is to correct the mistake while preserving the integrity of science; it is not to punish the author.

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

Sponsorship policy

Companies, individuals and other organizations are invited to support the development of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences by becoming a journal sponsor.

Sponsorships provide unrestricted funds that will help Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences advance its service to authors and readers and fulfill its mission. Sponsors will be highlighted on a Sponsors page.

The mission of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is to facilitate the equitable global dissemination of high-quality health research within the health community; to promote international dialogue and collaboration on health issues; to improve clinical practice; and to expand and deepen the understanding of health and health care.

Our open-access publishing platform is key to accomplishing our goals. To ensure their commitment to the integrity of debate within the pages of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, and to the independence of our editors, sponsors of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences will be asked to endorse the following sponsorship statement: We support the mission and principles of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and recognize the potential for competing interests while providing financial support to the Journal. We hereby state that we will not attempt to influence any editorial decisions made by the editors of Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, in return for our support.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences reserves the right to refuse sponsorship from any business or organization. In keeping with our policy on advertising, Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences does not accept sponsorships from pharmaceutical or medical device companies.

Please contact editorjhrs@almamater.si if you are interested in becoming an Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences sponsor, inserting “Sponsorship” in the subject line.

JHRS Archiving Policy

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences uses the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe), and ePrints systems to ensure a secure and permanent archive for the journal. LOCKSS and CLOCKSS are open-source software developed at Stanford University Library that enables libraries to preserve selected web journals by regularly polling registered journal websites for newly published content and archiving it. Each archive is continually validated against other library caches, and if the content is found to be corrupted or lost, the other caches or the journal is used to restore it.

JHRS Ghost and guest authorship policy

Ghost authorship occurs when someone makes a significant contribution to a manuscript without due acknowledgement of their role.

Guest authorship occurs when an individual is named as an author of a manuscript when they do not meet authorship criteria.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences considers that both ghost and guest authorship are breaches of publication ethics, and believes they violate readers’ trust in scientific reporting and can potentially bias medical literature. The Journal’s editors and readers need to be confident that authors listed have undertaken the work and that the written manuscript reflects their work; public confidence and scientific integrity depend on this.

Commercial interests should not inappropriately influence our scientific knowledge base.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences acknowledges the role of professional medical writers and requires that all writing assistance be disclosed.

To support transparent and complete authorship reporting, Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences expects authors to fulfill the following requirements:Authors must provide a contributor statement that describes the specific contribution of each author to the manuscript and shows how each author meets the 3 authorship criteria of the ICMJE. For example:

“Peter White participated in finalizing the study methodology, managed the quantitative component and was the principal writer of the manuscript. Katarina Johnson conceived the project, oversaw the data collection and analysis and participated in all phases of the writing. Luke Fernandez helped implement the study, worked on finalizing the methodology and contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript. Angela Mayer supervised the data collection, described the qualitative methods used in the study and reviewed all manuscript drafts. Julia Walsh conducted the data analysis and participated in editing and reviewing manuscript drafts. John Petersen conceived the study and oversaw its implementation and participated in the writing of the manuscript. James Stuart helped guide the analysis and participated in the writing. All of the authors approved the final version of the manuscript.”Authors should specify who wrote the first draft of the article (and for research studies, who wrote the protocol and did the statistical analyses). If the people named are not authors, the Journal editors will contact them to confirm their contribution.

Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be named in an Acknowledgements section with their contribution clearly described. Vague statements in the Acknowledgments section, such as “We thank XX” (without specifying for what), or “XY provided editorial assistance,” will not be accepted.

Authors should retain copies of drafts to facilitate investigations of possible misconduct.

Any and all assistance from professional writers must in every case be appropriately acknowledged and described and their funding source named.

Professional medical writers whose contribution to a manuscript qualifies them as an author according to the ICMJE criteria for authorship must be listed as authors, with their affiliations and competing interests provided and the source of their funding named.

Professional writers whose contribution to a manuscript does not qualify them as an author according to the ICMJE criteria for authorship must be named in the Acknowledgements section, with their contribution clearly described and their funding source named. Authors are requested to contact the Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences editors to obtain clarification as to the appropriate place in the manuscript to acknowledge and describe the contribution of a medical writer.

Journal of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences strongly believes in transparent reporting. Ghost and guest authorship are dishonest, and the Journal editors intend to maintain processes that improve public accountability and the credibility of scientific research reporting.