Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Jurnal Keperawatan Komprehensif (Comprehensive Nursing Journal), hereafter referred to as JKK, is committed to responsible scholarly publishing, fair editorial assessment, and the integrity of the published record.

This policy sets out the responsibilities of authors, editors, reviewers, and the publisher. It is guided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices, the Recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.

This statement should be read together with JKK’s Author Guidelines, Peer Review Policy, Open Access Policy, Copyright and Licensing Policy, Self-Archiving Policy, and published information on author fees.

Editorial Principles and Peer Review

JKK evaluates submissions according to their relevance to the journal’s scope, originality, methodological quality, ethical conduct, clarity, and contribution to nursing knowledge and practice.

Research articles, review articles, and case reports that pass initial editorial screening undergo double-anonymized external peer review by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. Author and reviewer identities are concealed from one another during the review process. Manuscripts that do not meet the journal’s scope, submission requirements, or minimum scientific and ethical standards may be rejected at the editorial screening stage.

Reviewers provide recommendations. The final publication decision rests with the responsible editor, who considers the manuscript, review reports, authors’ responses, and applicable journal policies. Decisions may include acceptance, a request for minor or major revision, or rejection. An invitation to revise does not guarantee acceptance.

The same standards of editorial oversight and research integrity apply to invited manuscripts and special issues. Any differences in review procedures for particular article types must be clearly described.

Editorial decisions are independent of publication fees, waiver requests, advertising, sponsorship, and other commercial interests.

Responsibilities of Editors

Editors must assess manuscripts fairly and without discrimination based on an author’s nationality, institutional affiliation, gender, ethnicity, religion, or other personal characteristics unrelated to the work.

Editors are responsible for selecting appropriate reviewers, evaluating review quality, communicating decisions clearly, and addressing concerns about research or publication integrity. Requests for additional citations must have a scholarly justification.

Submitted manuscripts and associated correspondence must be treated as confidential. Access is limited to individuals who require the material for legitimate editorial, review, production, or integrity-related purposes. Unpublished information must not be used for personal advantage.

Editors must disclose relevant conflicts of interest and withdraw from handling affected manuscripts. Submissions authored by editors, editorial board members, or the Editor-in-Chief must be assigned to an independent editor without a relevant conflict. The author concerned must not select reviewers, access confidential review information through an editorial role, or participate in the decision on their own manuscript.

Responsibilities of Reviewers

Reviewers should accept assignments only when they have appropriate expertise and can complete the assessment within the agreed period. They should promptly inform the editor if they must decline or require additional time.

Reviews must be objective, constructive, respectful, and supported by clear reasoning. Reviewers should assess the methods, interpretation, reporting, and ethical aspects of the work. Personal criticism and requests for irrelevant citations are unacceptable.

Reviewers must disclose relationships or circumstances that could compromise their impartiality. They must keep manuscripts and review materials confidential and must not share them with another person, involve an additional reviewer, or contact authors directly without editorial authorization.

Suspected plagiarism, substantial overlap, data irregularities, or other ethical concerns should be reported confidentially to the editor. Reviewers must not use unpublished material for personal benefit.

Any use of AI-assisted tools during review must comply with Section 10 of this policy.

Authorship and Contributorship

JKK applies the ICMJE authorship criteria. Every author must meet all four conditions:

1. Make a substantial contribution to the study’s concept or design, or to obtaining, analysing, or interpreting its data.
2. Help write the manuscript or critically revise its intellectual content.
3. Approve the complete version intended for publication.
4. Accept responsibility for the work, including cooperation in resolving concerns about its accuracy or integrity.

Contributors who meet the first condition must have an opportunity to participate in manuscript preparation and approval. Those who do not meet all four conditions should be acknowledged, with their permission. Gift, guest, purchased, and ghost authorship are unacceptable.

A contribution statement agreed upon by the authors must accompany the manuscript. The corresponding author coordinates communication and confirms that all authors approve submission and publication.

Requests to change the author list or order must explain the reason and include written agreement from all affected authors, including anyone being added or removed. Unresolved authorship disputes may pause publication and will be referred to the relevant institutions.

Responsibilities of Authors and Originality

Authors must provide an accurate account of their work, explain their methods sufficiently, present findings honestly, and acknowledge limitations. Data fabrication, falsification, deceptive image alteration, and misleading reporting are unacceptable.

Authors must acknowledge the work of others and obtain any permissions required for material they reproduce. References must support the statements for which they are cited. Citation manipulation and the inclusion of fabricated references are prohibited.

The same manuscript, or a substantially overlapping manuscript, must not be under consideration by another journal at the same time. Authors must disclose related submissions, publications, and preprints and explain any overlap.

Posting a preprint does not, by itself, prevent consideration by JKK. Authors must disclose the preprint record and update it with the published article’s citation and DOI when available.

Distinct analyses using the same dataset may be considered when they make a substantive contribution and transparently reference related work. Secondary publication requires appropriate editorial agreement, attribution, permissions where necessary, and clear identification of its relationship to the original publication.

Research Ethics and Protection of Participants

Research involving human participants, identifiable human material, or identifiable personal data must meet applicable ethical requirements and the principles of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki.

Authors must report the relevant ethics review decision, including the reviewing body, approval identifier, and approval date where issued. Required ethics approval must be obtained before the research begins. When an exemption applies, authors must explain its basis and identify the authorized body that determined or granted it.

The manuscript must explain how informed consent for participation was obtained or identify the authorized waiver. Additional safeguards must be described for participants in vulnerable circumstances, including representative consent and participant assent when applicable.

Consent to participate in research does not automatically constitute consent to publish identifying information. Publication of identifiable descriptions, photographs, or other personal material requires written consent for publication from the participant or an authorized representative. Unnecessary identifying details must be omitted.

Authors must retain consent documentation securely and provide appropriate confirmation when requested. Routine submission of identifiable consent forms is not required.

Research involving animals must report relevant ethical approval and compliance with applicable animal welfare requirements. Authors must accurately describe the standards and approvals applicable when the research was conducted.

Clinical Trial Registration

JKK supports prospective public registration of medical research involving human participants.

Clinical trials must be registered in ClinicalTrials.gov or a primary registry of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform no later than the first participant’s consent to enrolment.

This requirement covers studies that prospectively assign individuals or groups to a health-related intervention to evaluate a health outcome. It applies regardless of randomization or the presence of a control group and includes relevant nursing, educational, and behavioural interventions.

Authors must provide the registry name, registration number, registration date, and a link to the record. The registration number should also appear in the abstract.

Ethics committee approval does not replace trial registration. Retrospective registration must be identified as such. Any exceptional consideration of a late-registered trial requires a clear explanation, with the authors’ justification and the editor’s reason for allowing the exception published with the article.

Data Availability, Reproducibility, and Reporting

Research manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement explaining whether and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed. Where sharing is restricted, authors must explain the relevant ethical, legal, consent-related, or other legitimate limitations and describe any available access procedure.

JKK encourages responsible sharing of data, protocols, analysis code, and supporting materials through suitable repositories. Sharing must protect participants’ privacy and comply with consent and applicable requirements. Authors must not promise unrestricted access when they cannot lawfully or ethically provide it.

Clinical trial reports must include a data sharing statement specifying whether de-identified participant data will be shared, what data and documents will be available, the availability period, and access conditions. Trials beginning enrolment on or after 1 January 2019 must include a data sharing plan in the registry record. Changes must be reflected in the registry and published statement.

Authors should use reporting guidelines appropriate to the study design. They must retain underlying records in accordance with applicable requirements and cooperate with justified editorial requests for supporting information through appropriate confidential arrangements.

Conflicts of Interest and Funding

Authors, reviewers, and editors must disclose financial and non-financial relationships or activities that could reasonably influence their work or its assessment.

Manuscripts must contain a Conflicts of Interest Statement, including an explicit declaration when no relevant conflicts exist.

Authors must identify funding sources and describe the funders’ involvement in study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, and the decision to submit. Relevant assistance and sponsorship must also be acknowledged.

Disclosure does not automatically disqualify a manuscript or participant in the editorial process. Editors will assess the circumstances and apply appropriate measures to protect independent judgment.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Authors

Authors must declare whether generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were used in preparing the submitted work. Manuscripts must include an AI Use Statement, including a statement of non-use when applicable.

Disclosures must identify the tool, its version where available, its purpose, and the nature of its use. Writing assistance should be acknowledged in the manuscript. AI used in research procedures, data analysis, or figure generation must be described in the Methods with sufficient detail to understand and assess its use.

AI systems cannot qualify as authors. Human authors remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, attribution, and integrity of all content. They must verify references and review AI-assisted output carefully. AI must not be used to fabricate observations, invent references, or misrepresent data or images.

Reviewers and Editors

Reviewers must obtain editorial permission before using AI-assisted tools in a review and disclose any permitted use.

Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, review reports, or identifiable research data to public AI services. Any proposed use of another AI system must comply with the journal’s confidentiality requirements and obtain the authors’ explicit permission where confidentiality cannot be assured.

AI assistance does not replace human assessment or accountability. Any journal use of AI in copyediting or production will be disclosed in the information provided to authors.

Copyright, Licensing, and Self-Archiving

Authors retain copyright in their work and grant JKK the non-exclusive rights required for first journal publication, dissemination, and preservation.

Articles published under JKK’s current licensing policy are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). Reuse must comply with the licence attached to the article. Any separately licensed third-party material must be clearly identified.

Authors may share permitted manuscript versions in accordance with JKK’s Self-Archiving Policy, with appropriate acknowledgement and a link to the published article when available.

Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions for third-party material. Previously published articles remain subject to the licence under which they were released.

Plagiarism and Text Recycling

JKK screens manuscripts using Turnitin during initial assessment and checks accepted manuscripts again before publication as part of its editorial quality control.

A similarity report identifies text matches; it does not independently determine whether plagiarism has occurred. Editors assess the matched sources, attribution, quotations, location and extent of overlap, and the nature of the material. No single similarity percentage establishes or excludes plagiarism.

Plagiarism includes presenting another person’s words, ideas, data, images, or other work without appropriate acknowledgement. Translation does not remove the obligation to credit the original source.

Reuse of an author’s previously published material must be disclosed and assessed in context. Limited overlap in methodological descriptions is evaluated differently from undisclosed duplication of findings or substantial portions of an article.

Depending on the evidence and publication stage, responses may include a request for clarification or correction, rejection, or post-publication action. Decisions will follow the process described below.

Allegations of Research or Publication Misconduct

JKK considers credible concerns raised before or after publication, including concerns about fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, duplicate publication, authorship manipulation, compromised peer review, citation manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, and unethical research.

Reports should identify the manuscript or article and provide specific information or supporting evidence. Substantiated concerns may be considered even when reported anonymously.

The journal will:

1. Assess the available evidence and identify an editor without a relevant conflict of interest.
2. Inform the affected authors of the concerns and give them a reasonable opportunity to respond.
3. Request supporting records or independent expert advice where necessary.
4. Refer matters requiring formal investigation to the relevant institution, funder, or other responsible body.
5. Decide what editorial or corrective action is needed and communicate the reasons to the affected parties.

Editorial assessment of an article’s reliability is distinct from a formal institutional investigation of researcher conduct. JKK may act to protect readers when sufficient evidence is available, even if an institutional investigation remains incomplete.

Actions may include requesting amendments, rejecting a manuscript, publishing a correction or expression of concern, or retracting an article. JKK does not impose publication bans or institution-wide blacklists as penalties. Withdrawal of a manuscript does not automatically end the assessment of a credible integrity concern.

Withdrawal of Unpublished Manuscripts

Authors may withdraw an unpublished manuscript, including an accepted manuscript that has not yet been published, by contacting the editorial office.

The corresponding author should provide the manuscript title and submission identifier, explain the reason, and confirm the co-authors’ agreement. JKK will promptly acknowledge a clear withdrawal request, stop further processing, and update the submission status.

A withdrawal request made in good faith does not depend indefinitely on receiving editorial confirmation. Authors may regard the manuscript as withdrawn even if confirmation is not received and should retain a record of their request and related correspondence.

Withdrawal itself is not treated as misconduct. Separate concerns, such as concurrent submission or fabricated data, will be considered through the journal’s integrity procedures.

Failure to submit a revision by an agreed deadline may lead to administrative closure after notification to the authors. An overdue revision does not, by itself, establish misconduct.

Once an article has been publicly published, including online-first publication, concerns are addressed through the post-publication procedures below.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, Retractions, and Removal

Authors must promptly notify the journal if they discover an error that could affect the accuracy, interpretation, or reliability of a published article. Readers and other parties may also report concerns.

The responsible editor determines the appropriate action based on the evidence, the nature of the problem, and its implications for the published record.

Corrections

A correction is appropriate when an error or omission can be addressed while the article remains sufficiently reliable. Corrections may concern scientific content, author information, disclosures, or production errors.

The notice will explain what has changed and identify the affected article. Changes to scientific content will be documented, corrected versions will be identifiable, and the relevant publication history will be preserved.

Expressions of Concern

An expression of concern may be published when there are serious unresolved questions about an article and available evidence is inconclusive, an investigation is delayed, or a reliable investigation cannot be obtained.

The notice will describe the concern and its current status without presenting an unproven allegation as an established finding. When the matter is resolved, the journal will publish an appropriate update and link it to the earlier notice.

Retractions

Retraction may be necessary when findings cannot be relied upon because of a major error or misconduct, or when serious problems such as substantial plagiarism, undisclosed redundant publication, unethical research, or compromised peer review undermine the article.

An honest error can also justify retraction when it invalidates the findings. Retraction serves to correct the scholarly record.

A retraction notice will identify the article, explain the reasons, state who is issuing the retraction, and record the date. Authors will normally have an opportunity to respond, but their agreement is not required for an evidence-based editorial decision.

The article will ordinarily remain accessible with a prominent RETRACTED label on its landing page and available article formats, including the PDF. The DOI and bibliographic record will be retained. The abstract and keywords will ordinarily remain available with clear retraction information to support identification and traceability.

Exceptional Removal

Removal of article content is reserved for exceptional circumstances, such as a court order, a serious infringement of legal or privacy rights that cannot be adequately addressed by correction or retraction, or a serious health risk from continued availability.

Where removal is necessary, the journal will retain a notice and bibliographic information to the extent legally permitted, explaining the action and its basis.

Retraction with Republication

Where an unintentional error invalidates a publication but the underlying work can support a valid corrected article, retraction with republication may be considered after further editorial assessment and appropriate peer review.

The original record, retraction notice, and republished article will be clearly linked. A corrected article will not silently overwrite the previous publication.

Notices and Metadata

Corrections, expressions of concern, and retractions will be freely accessible, separately published, citable, and assigned their own DOI. Notices and affected articles will link to one another.

The journal will update relevant article metadata and communicate changes to applicable indexing, registration, and preservation services.

Complaints and Appeals

Complaints, appeals, withdrawal requests, and reports of publication integrity concerns should be sent to:

Editorial Office
Jurnal Keperawatan Komprehensif (Comprehensive Nursing Journal)
Email: jkk.stikepppnijabar@gmail.com

Correspondence should identify the manuscript or article, provide the submission identifier or DOI where available, explain the concern, and include supporting evidence.

Authors may appeal an editorial decision by identifying a substantive factual error, a procedural concern, or relevant evidence that was not adequately considered. The appeal will be assessed by an editor who was not responsible for the disputed decision and who has no relevant conflict. Further independent assessment may be sought. An appeal does not guarantee reversal or acceptance.

Complaints about an editor will be handled by another editor without a relevant conflict. Complaints concerning the Editor-in-Chief will be referred for independent assessment, with the publisher arranging suitable oversight. Where a complaint involves the publisher or impartial internal handling is not possible, an independent external adviser will be engaged.

JKK will acknowledge correspondence, communicate material progress where appropriate, and provide the outcome and reasons. Information will be shared only as needed for fair assessment and resolution.

Post-Publication Discussion

JKK welcomes reasoned comments, questions, and criticism concerning published articles. Correspondence should focus on the evidence and scholarly content and should be submitted through the editorial office.

Editors may invite the authors to respond and may publish relevant correspondence, responses, or editorial notices in an appropriate format. Authors are expected to cooperate with reasonable requests for clarification or supporting information.

Discussion does not automatically imply that an article is unreliable. Where a concern requires correction or another formal action, the journal will apply the procedures in this policy.

Responsibilities of the Publisher

The publisher supports editorial independence, appropriate confidentiality safeguards, transparent journal information, and preservation of the scholarly record.

The publisher will assist editors in addressing integrity concerns and implementing justified corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or exceptional removals. Financial or commercial interests must not obstruct necessary action.

JKK will review this policy periodically and maintain consistency between its website policies, submission requirements, editorial procedures, and published articles.