Ochsner Journal complies with the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommendations for Protection of Research Participants.
Investigators must ensure that the planning, conduct, and reporting of human research are in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration as revised in 2013.
In addition, for all research articles involving human subjects, authors must state in the Methods section if the study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB)/ethics board and provide details about how participants gave informed consent. All studies involving human participants, including survey studies and retrospective medical records reviews, require IRB oversight, and a statement regarding IRB consideration and approval or waiver must be included in Methods.
Patient identification information such as names and medical record numbers must not provided in the text and must be removed from all imaging graphics.
Clinical trials must be registered in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition of consideration for publication. The trial registry name and URL and the registration number of the trial must be provided in the manuscript.
To ensure that patient privacy is respected and maintained according to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) requirements, Ochsner Journal requires a signed patient consent form for all case reports and case series, regardless of whether the patient is pictured or how completely the information is de-identified. Cases will not be considered for publication without the full knowledge and consent of the patient, or in the case of minors, the patient’s parent or guardian. Telephone consents will not be accepted. Images of signatures and machine signatures of any type (including Docusign) will not be accepted. Patient consent forms are archived by the Journal and confidentiality is maintained.
When reporting experiments on animals, authors must indicate whether institutional and national standards for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.