Publication Ethics

Editorial Policies

The Journal of Rural and Tropical Nursing (JRTN) is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics. All parties involved in the publication process — authors, reviewers, editors, and the publisher — are expected to uphold the ethical principles described on this page. JRTN follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Authors

Originality: authors must ensure that the submitted work is original, has not been published previously, and is not under consideration by another journal.

Proper attribution: the work of others must be appropriately cited. Passages taken directly from other sources must be clearly indicated as quotations with the source cited.

Data integrity: authors must not fabricate, falsify, or selectively report data. The reported data must accurately represent the original study.

Authorship: all individuals listed as authors must meet the criteria for authorship. All individuals who meet the criteria must be included. The criteria are described on the Authorship and Contributorship page.

Disclosure: all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest must be disclosed, as must any sources of funding. Full details are on the Conflicts of Interest page.

Ethical compliance: research involving human participants must have been approved by an ethics committee or institutional review board, and informed consent must have been obtained where required.

Errors: authors must notify the editor promptly if they discover a significant error in a published work and cooperate fully with any correction or retraction process.

Reviewers

Confidentiality: reviewers must treat manuscripts as confidential documents and must not share or discuss them outside the review process.

Objectivity: reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the authors is not appropriate.

Conflicts of interest: reviewers must decline invitations when a conflict of interest exists and must disclose any conflict that becomes apparent during the review.

No misappropriation: reviewers must not use unpublished material or ideas from a manuscript in their own work without the explicit written consent of the authors.

Report concerns: reviewers who suspect misconduct — including fabrication, plagiarism, or undisclosed duplication — must report this to the editorial office.

Editors

Fair evaluation: manuscripts are evaluated solely on their scholarly merit, regardless of the authors' identity, nationality, institution, or affiliation.

Confidentiality: the editor must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the relevant reviewers and editorial staff.

Conflicts of interest: editors must recuse themselves from handling manuscripts in which they have a competing interest and must delegate those manuscripts to another editor.

Accountability: the editor is responsible for investigating concerns about potential misconduct and for taking appropriate action, including correction or retraction, when evidence warrants it.

Handling Misconduct

JRTN takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and follows COPE guidelines in investigating and responding to such allegations.

Pre-publication If misconduct is suspected during the review process, the editorial office will investigate before making a publication decision. This may involve requesting additional information from the authors, contacting the authors' institution, or rejecting the manuscript.
Post-publication If misconduct is identified after publication, JRTN will issue a correction, retraction, or expression of concern as appropriate. The approach will follow COPE guidelines and will be carried out transparently and in a timely manner.
Institutional escalation In serious cases, JRTN may notify the authors' institution or relevant regulatory body. All investigations are conducted with due regard for procedural fairness.

Reporting concerns

Concerns about the ethical conduct of research described in a published or submitted article may be reported to the editorial office at editorial@pekamerawatnegeri.com. All reports are handled confidentially and in accordance with COPE guidelines.