Our Policies
Editorial Policy
Eurasian Society of Family Medicine is a non-profit academic organization aiming to provide high-quality continuing professional development for family physicians/general practitioners and exchange ideas, information and experience in family medicine/primary care and support learning community of primary health care.
To achieve its goals, ESFAM is conducting educational activities in two main branches: academic publishing and conference organizing. To elevate the quality and impact of its activities, ESFAM is collaborating with respected scientists and researchers representing their academic and geographical territories throughout the world.
Executive Board of the Society is working in order to form and update the best possible Editorial Boards and Committees in its academic activities. ESFAM is appointing distinguished scientists, who are prominent in their national academies and international organizations in its boards.
Open Access Policy
We adopted the open access policy, considering the principle on increasing the global exchange of the knowledge that generates useful resource for humanity.
Thus, our journals are "open access journals" with the content freely available to all users without any restrictions. Readers can read and download the articles and issues in full text, print out and link to articles citing the journal without a need of a registration or permission from the publisher or the author(s).
Publication Ethics Policy
Only the papers that have not previously been published or under review in any scientific publication are accepted for publication. Manuscripts that have been presented orally or as a poster must be stated on the title page with the date and the place of the congress.
Manuscript format must be in accordance with the ICMJE-Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication available at www.icmje.org. The final form of the manuscript should be seen and approved by all authors. The Editorial Board, International Editorial Board and the Publisher are responsible to identify and prevent any research misconduct. The journal is open to publish any corrections, clarifications and apologies when needed.
Any requests for withdrawal will be thoroughly discussed and carefully evaluated by the Editorial Board and the Publisher.
Informed Consent
The authors are responsible for the declaration of the ethical documents of the manuscripts and Editorial Board members are authorized for final jurisdiction. All manuscripts must include the ethical consent forms upon submission.
Conflict of Interest
The authors are responsible for the scientific content of the material to be published. All submissions must be accompanied by a signed statement of scientific contributions and responsibilities of all authors and a statement declaring the absence of conflict of interests.
Any institution, organization, pharmaceutical or medical company providing any financial or material support, in whole or in part, must be disclosed in a footnote.
Plagiarism
All submitted papers undergo plagiarism check in different levels of reviewing process by the Editorial Board to avoid any possible ethical problems. When detected, the editorial board of the manuscript will act in accordance with the relevant guidelines.
Peer Review Policy
All articles submitted for publication are peer-reviewed for their suitability for the Journal. Papers do not comply with the format of the Journal will be returned to the author without further review. Therefore, to avoid time and work loss, authors must carefully review the rules of the journal.
Manuscripts that comply with the main rules of the journal are sent to at least two reviewers from International Editorial Board with no conflict of interest with the authors, and the reviewers are asked for opinion about the suitability of the paper for publication. The reviewed manuscripts are then re-reviewed by the Editorial Board and the decision for the publication is established. There may be multiple revision requests by the reviewers or editors, if needed.
The Editorial Board, International Editorial Board and the Publisher have the authority to edit the manuscripts, request changes in the format of the manuscripts, and make reductions within the authors' knowledge in typographic control. Until the required changes and edits have been made, the papers will not be preceded for publication.
Research Ethics Policy
Reports of research on COVID-19 should meet required standards and comply with agreed guidelines, and any limitations should be clearly stated. For further details, please refer to https://ease.org.uk/publications/ease-statements-resources/ease-statement-on-quality-standards.
An approval of research protocols by ethics committee in accordance with international agreements is required for experimental, and clinical and drug trial studies:
WMA Declaration of Helsinki - Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects, October 2013, Fortaleza, Brazil (available at: http://www.ub.edu/ recerca/Bioetica/doc/Declaracio_Helsinki_2013.pdf)
Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals 8th edition (available at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/olaw/ Guide-for-the-care-and-use-of-Laboratory-animals.pdf)
Advertising Policy
ESFAM is generally financing its journals. However, limited number of drug/medical products and hardware/software advertisements are not discouraged.
Editorial workflow and advertisement processes are totally separated in order to secure editorial independency and to prevent from any possible influences from financial interests.
Presentation of the published advertisements are not subject to any association with the scientific content.
The advertisers accept the full responsibility to follow the governing laws regarding content and ethical issues.