As the official publication of AORN, Inc, the AORN Journal has a responsibility to its readers (who for the most part also are members of the Association) to provide practical, educational, evidence-based, and theoretical information that will result in quality patient care and improved standards of perioperative nursing.
In the past, the Journal has had a policy of not accepting industry-written articles because of a concern that readers would perceive that the authors of these articles were biased. This perception, in turn, might give the impression that the Journal itself is biased, undermining the overall credibility of the Journal.
However, the editor, editorial board, and staff of the AORN Journal recognize that members of industry often have valuable information to share that may benefit Journal readers. It is for this reason that we have developed the following Guidelines for articles written by authors who have a relationship with industry.
GUIDELINES
The AORN Journal operates under the principles of good ethics in publishing. Therefore, the following guidelines will apply to manuscripts from a source related to industry.
Editorial Autonomy/Peer Review • The Editor-in-Chief of the AORN Journal will maintain complete control over the selection of articles for the Journal.
• Articles will undergo peer review. AORN staff will choose the reviewers, and the editor-in-chief will make the final decision regarding acceptance for publication.
• Authors and the companies with which they are affiliated should not expect to influence the manuscript review process, the acceptance process, or the publication process.
• Journal editorial staff members will work directly with the authors of accepted manuscripts.
Authorship/Disclosure • Full disclosure of a manuscript's authors, who take 100% responsibility for the content of the published article, must be made at the time of submission.
• Disclosure also should include details of the author's affiliations, past and present, with any organization or entity that has a financial interest in the material contained in the article, and if the publication of the article will financially benefit the author.
• Potential conflicts of interest, which may be personal, commercial, political, academic, or financial, will be revealed to readers on the opening page of the article, at the discretion of the editor.
• More information about the manner in which potential bias should be addressed may be found in the Editorial Policy Statement for the AORN Journal.
• The AORN Journal will not accept for inclusion as regular journal editorial content articles written by public relations professionals, ghostwriters, or others working for or representing a commercial enterprise; however, there may be the opportunity to publish a sponsored supplement with the journal (see "Sponsored Supplement Publishing with AORN Journal" below).
Manuscript Content • Authors affiliated with industry can write articles on topics that are pertinent to their or their company's area of expertise, but these articles should not focus on the company's products. (For example, an author who works for an endoscope company could write an article on how to handle and clean endoscopes, but the author should take care not to focus on only one particular brand of endoscope.)
• In the interest of providing healthy discussion of potentially controversial or conflicting ideas, the AORN Journal will no longer require that practice recommendations or suggestions given in the article adhere to AORN's Standards, Recommended Practices, and Guidelines. However, when information that conflicts with AORN recommended practices is published, AORN's recommendations will be clearly listed (as a sidebar or similar format) in the article.
• Information contained in industry-written articles should be of interest to Journal readers and must detail how the information benefits nursing practice as well as how it can improve workplace safety, patient safety, or overall operations in the perioperative arena.
• Articles should be clinically relevant and preferably written or coauthored by practicing health care professionals.
• The editor maintains complete control over articles published in the Journal as outlined under "Editorial Autonomy/Peer Review."
• The AORN Journal does not accept public service announcements or product updates/new product releases as manuscripts.
Research Articles • Research articles must meet stringent requirements as laid out in the Uniform Guidelines for Submission of Manuscripts to Biomedical Journals.
• Articles must reflect good science in design, methodology, implementation, and analysis.
• Articles about research sponsored by industry will be identified as such on the first page of the article.
• Submission of a research article to the Journal carries with it the implication that access to all data included in the research will be provided for editorial evaluation if requested.
• Articles that do not meet these guidelines will not be considered as research articles. These may be reclassified as clinical, and the authors may be asked to revise them as such.
PRODUCT-RELATED ARTICLES
• As part of its regular editorial content, the AORN Journal does not accept articles that focus on a particular company's product. In rare cases, however, we recognize that the technology in question may be so innovative and pertinent to patient or caregiver safety that it is important for AORN Journal readers to know about it. In these cases, an article may be solicited by the AORN Journal editor, but it will still go through the peer review process.
• No brand names are used in the Journal, except in cases where they are overwhelmingly pertinent. (For example, if an author says the patient was transferred to the OR bed, it usually is not necessary or pertinent to the article that the bed brand is given; however, in situations when an article talks about a particular product that is new and innovative, the product name may, in some instances, be used.)
• Articles about products should be factual and to the point.
• Marketing terms and phrases will be taken out of the article.
• All obviously biased or slanted statements will be edited out of the article.
• Product-related articles must include a detailed risk:benefit analysis and financial considerations. Articles that do not have these elements will be returned for revision.
SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT PUBLISHING WITHAORN JOURNAL
The AORN Journal publishes supplements sponsored by industry. A supplement may be based on the proceedings of meetings, or it could be an invited collection of manuscripts on a special topic. Manuscripts for sponsored supplements undergo the same peer review and editorial process as regular Journal content. Sponsored supplement content is published with a regular issue of the Journal, indexed, and included with the regular issue in the major data base and contents services (Medline, PubMed, etc). A sponsored supplement appears in print and is available online at aornjournal.org as well as on the Journal's website on Elsevier's Science Direct.
Steps to Publishing a Supplement with AORN Journal
The first step is to secure preliminary approval from the editorial office by submitting:
• The proposed topic and table of contents with names and affiliations of contributing authors
• Name and affiliation of the supplement's proposed guest editor
• Name of the sponsor
• Date and venue of the corresponding meeting, if supplement is based on proceedings of a symposium
The AORN Journal editor-in-chief will review the proposal promptly and, assuming the proposed content fits with the Journal's mission and scope, will ask that manuscripts be submitted for full editorial and peer review, as described above.
Supplements are usually separately bound (free standing) issues that are mailed in the same carrier bag with a regular issue of the journal.
For more information about sponsored supplement publishing with AORN Journal, contact Liz Haigh, Director of Publishing at AORN (LHaigh@aorn.org, 1-303-755-6304 x364).
