title: Do editorial policies support ethical research? A thematic text analysis of author instructions in psychiatry journals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  According to the Declaration of Helsinki and other guidelines, clinical studies should be approved by a research ethics committee and seek valid informed consent from the participants. Editors of medical journals are encouraged by the ICMJE and COPE to include requirements for these principles in the journal's instructions for authors. This study assessed the editorial policies of psychiatry journals regarding ethics review and informed consent.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The information given on ethics review and informed consent and the mentioning of the ICMJE and COPE recommendations were assessed within author's instructions and online submission procedures of all 123 eligible psychiatry journals. While 54% and 58% of editorial policies required ethics review and informed consent, only 14% and 19% demanded the reporting of these issues in the manuscript. The TOP-10 psychiatry journals (ranked by impact factor) performed similarly in this regard.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Only every second psychiatry journal adheres to the ICMJE's recommendation to inform authors about requirements for informed consent and ethics review. Furthermore, we argue that even the ICMJE's recommendations in this regard are insufficient, at least for ethically challenging clinical trials. At the same time, ideal scientific design sometimes even needs to be compromised for ethical reasons. We suggest that features of clinical studies that make them morally controversial, but not necessarily unethical, are analogous to methodological limitations and should thus be reported explicitly. Editorial policies as well as reporting guidelines such as CONSORT should be extended to support a meaningful reporting of ethical research.
authors.affiliation: Hannover Medical School, CELLS - Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences, Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Strech
authors.affiliation: Hannover Medical School, CELLS - Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences, Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Hannover, Germany; Leibniz University of Hannover, CELLS - Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences, Department of Philosophy, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Courtney
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Metz
authors.affiliation: Hannover Medical School, CELLS - Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences, Institute for History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine, Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Knüppel
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics; D035081:Editorial Policies; D028744:Ethics Committees, Research; D032984:Ethics, Research; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D011570:Psychiatry; D011643:Publishing / Q000941:ethics / Q000592:standards; D012106:Research