[Disclosure of conflict of interest in the Journals of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology].

Abstract

The committee of conflict of interest of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology has been promoting awareness of Conflict of Interest (COI) among society members. The soci- ety publishes two academic journals: "Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica(Seishin Shinkeigaku Zasshi)" in Japanese and "Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences (PCN)" in English. The integrity and fairness of the content should be guaranteed in medical journals. Inadequate dec- laration of COI may damage the reliability of a study. If the authors have a financial relation- ship with any providers, the reader may doubt the impartiality of the analysis of the data and discussion of the results. If the authors intentionally hide COI, the study may be viewed nega- tively by the society, even if it was carried out correctly. "Seishin Shinkeigaku Zasshi" requires authors to disclose their COI according to the COI guideline of the society. In most cases, they obtain grant support from the government, dona- tions from industry, or a speaker's honoraria. All authors of the paper must disclose their own COI. The corresponding author must bear in mind that all authors are responsible for the sub- mitted paper. It is important for the authors to determine whether there are any COI from a third party's point of view. In the PCN journal, COI must be declared according to the ICMJE form for COI disclo- sure. This form is different from the COI guideline of the society. In the ICMJE form, minor financial interests do not need to be declared, but if there are any non-financial COI, they should be declared.