Ethical Principles and Publication Policy

MINDSET is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics. Its policies follow the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Research Ethics and Consent

Manuscripts reporting research with human participants must state in the Methods section that the study was approved by a research ethics committee, giving the name of the committee, the approval number, and the date of approval. Studies must conform to the Declaration of Helsinki.

Authors must confirm that written informed consent was obtained from all participants, or from a legal guardian where a participant could not consent. Case reports require written consent for publication from the patient. Where ethics approval was not required, authors must state the reason and name the body that granted the exemption.

Manuscripts submitted without this information are returned to the authors before peer review.

Reporting Guidelines

Authors must submit the completed checklist for the reporting guideline that matches their study design:

  • Randomised controlled trials: CONSORT
  • Observational studies: STROBE
  • Systematic reviews and meta-analyses: PRISMA
  • Qualitative research: COREQ or SRQR
  • Descriptions of interventions: TIDieR
  • Instrument development and validation: COSMIN
  • Diagnostic accuracy studies: STARD
  • Economic evaluations: CHEERS

Clinical trials must be registered in a public registry before the first participant is enrolled, and the registration number must appear at the end of the abstract.

Authorship and Contributions

MINDSET applies the four ICMJE authorship criteria. Every listed author must have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; drafted the work or revised it critically; approved the final version; and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

The contribution of each author must be described using the CRediT taxonomy in an Author Contributions section. Honorary, guest, and ghost authorship are grounds for rejection. Changes to the author list after submission require the written agreement of all authors.

Conflicts of Interest

Every author must declare any financial or non-financial interest that could be perceived to influence the work, including employment, consultancies, honoraria, grants, patents, and personal relationships. A declaration is required even when there is nothing to declare.

Data Availability

Every manuscript must include a Data Availability Statement. Authors are encouraged to deposit de-identified data in a public repository and to cite the dataset. Where data cannot be shared, the statement must explain why.

Originality and Plagiarism

  • Submitted work must be original, and the work or words of others must be appropriately cited.
  • Plagiarism in any form leads to rejection before publication or retraction after publication.
  • Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyrighted instruments, figures, or text.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

  • Reviewers treat manuscripts as confidential documents and provide objective, constructive feedback.
  • Reviewers disclose any potential conflict of interest to the editor and decline the invitation where one exists.

Responsibilities of Editors

  • The journal operates double-blind peer review.
  • Decisions are based solely on scientific merit and relevance to the scope of the journal.
  • Editors withdraw from handling any submission in which they have a competing interest.

Further Information

Editorial independence, corrections, retractions, appeals, and complaints are described in the Editorial Policies. Concerns about publication ethics may be sent to ethics@mindsetjournal.org.

MINDSET is a Crossref member and each published article will be assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) upon publication.