Survey of conflict-of-interest disclosure policies of ophthalmology journals.

Abstract

To survey the disclosure policy for authors, peer reviewers, and editors in English-language ophthalmology journals. Cross-sectional survey. English-language ophthalmology journals. All indexed English-language ophthalmology journals were identified. The journals' websites were reviewed for published conflict-of-interest disclosure policies for authors, peer reviewers, and editors. In cases where no policy was found, the journal's editor was contacted directly to confirm if a policy existed. The existence of conflict-of-interest policy for authors, peer reviewers, and editors. Forty-two English-language ophthalmology journals were identified. Web-based published conflict-of-interest policies were found for authors in 33 (79%), for peer reviewers in 3 (7%), and for editors in 2 (5%) of the 42 journals. After contacting those journals with no published policies, these numbers increased to 37 (100%) of 37 for authors, 18 (60%) of 30 for peer reviewers, and 10 (33%) of 30 for editors. Seven journals with published disclosure policies for authors, but not for peer reviewers or editors, did not respond to the survey, and a further 5 journals without any published disclosure policy did not respond to the survey. Journals with a higher impact factor were more likely to have a web-based published disclosure policy for peer reviewers and a disclosure policy for editors. Most English-language ophthalmology journals have a conflict-of-interest policy for authors; however, they are not publicly available in 21% of journals. Conflict-of-interest policies for peer reviewers and editors are less common and are more likely not to be published compared with those for authors. The author(s) have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.