Author(s) who submit articles to the journal are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
• It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that the articles comply with scientific and ethical rules.
• Articles submitted for publication in the journal must not have been previously published or accepted for publication anywhere.
• All authors must have direct academic and scientific contributions to the articles. Author(s) should participate in the acquisition of article data, analysis or interpretation, conceptualization, design, writing of the article or critical review of it for content, planning and/or revising the work in the article. Providing funding/grants for the article and collecting data alone do not grant authorship rights. In this case, individuals who do not meet the sufficient criteria for authorship but contributed to the article should be listed in the "acknowledgments" section, indicating their contributions.
• Authorship contribution information must be reported in the article before the references section. In multi-author articles, the authors' contributions to the research (idea formation, design, statistics, article writing, etc.) must be explained and signed.
• If there is a direct or indirect commercial connection in the article or an institution that provides financial support for the study, the authors should list the commercial product, drug, pharmaceutical company, etc. used under the Conflict of Interest heading before the references section. He must state that he has no commercial relationship with the company or, if so, what kind of relationship he has (consultant, other agreements).
• In all studies conducted on humans, the Declaration of Helsinki, Good Clinical Practice Guide, Good Laboratory Practice Guide and T.R. It accepts the principle of compliance with the relevant regulations of the Ministry of Health. It should be stated in the Materials and Methods section of the article that ethics committee approval has been obtained (including number and date), the patients and/or volunteers on whom the study was conducted should be informed and their written consent should be obtained, and it should be written in the Materials and Methods section of the article.
Ethics committee approval form must be uploaded to the system during the article upload process. In studies for which ethics committee approval is not obtained, the justification must be explained in the article.
•In studies conducted on animals, it should be stated in the Materials and Methods section of the article that the study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (www.nap.edu/catalog/5140.html) and that ethics committee approval was obtained from the relevant institution.
• A copy of the ethics committee approval must be uploaded to the journal system.
• In case reports, an informed consent document must be obtained from the patient or, if necessary, his/her legal representative, and
It should be stated in writing within the article.
• Studies presented at the congress and symposium should be stated as footnotes on the title page.
• Authors must check the plagiarism rate in the analysis program before submitting an article to the journal, and the similarity rate of the article must be at most 20%.
• The Publication Rights Transfer Agreement on the journal website must be filled out in handwriting, signed by all authors, and scanned and uploaded to the system. No copyright is paid to the articles submitted to the journal.
•If the author(s) notices a mistake or error regarding his/her published work, at the early appearance or evaluation stage, he/she has the obligation to cooperate with the editor in informing, correcting or retracting the journal editor or publisher.

ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF REFEREES
Referees who submit articles to the journal are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
- Referees should not contact authors directly.
- They must make their evaluations impartially and confidentially.
- If he/she thinks that he/she is faced with a conflict of interest during the evaluation process, he/she should not accept to review the study and should inform the journal editor.
- Must complete the evaluation objectively and use constructive and courteous language.
- If they deem necessary, they should exchange opinions with the editor during the evaluation process.
ETHICAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF EDITORS
Editors who submit articles to the journal are expected to comply with the following ethical responsibilities:
— Must make efforts to meet the information needs of readers and writers.
— The author should carefully examine feedback from referees or readers and respond in an enlightening and explanatory manner.
— Must contribute to the development of the journal and carry out processes to improve the quality of the studies.
— Journal processes must be completed fairly, impartially and on time, in accordance with ethical principles.
- Editor and editorial board members can also send articles to the journal and publish in the journal.
The journal uses the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) Open Access Journals Guide (https://doaj.org/apply/transparency/). Transparency principles are taken as reference in scientific publishing. Although the publication language of the journal is Turkish, articles in English with Turkish abstracts can also be included in the journal.
Balkan Journal of Health Sciences attaches importance to ethical rules in terms of protecting the rights of both the journal and the authors. The provisions of the "Higher Education Institutions Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive" (https://www.yok.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Kurumsal/mevzuat/bilimsel-arastirma-ve etikyonetmeligi.aspx), relevant legislation and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) ) takes into account the ethical rules and responsibilities published by https://publicationethics.org/
Article submission and evaluations by Scientific Advisory Board Members are carried out electronically. Manuscripts sent to the journal are first examined by the typesetting team in terms of the journal's basic rules. Articles that do not comply with the basic rules of the journal may be rejected by the editorship or revision may be requested. Manuscripts that are determined to comply with the basic rules of the journal are first evaluated by the journal editorship and sent to the field editor. After being reviewed by the field editor, it is sent to at least two members of the Scientific Advisory Board (double-blind peer review) and these members are asked to give their opinions within 4 weeks about whether it is suitable for publication.
In order for the article to be published, at least two referees must express positive opinions. If one of the two referees expresses a negative opinion, the Journal Publications Commission may review the referee reports and decide to appoint a third referee for the article or to return the article to the author. Referees evaluate articles in areas such as scientific quality and contribution to national/international science and practice. After review by the referee, the article is sent to the journal editor with a recommendation regarding rejection, revision or acceptance of the article.
The journal editorship makes a decision in line with the referee recommendations, which will be notified to the author. The article is sent back to the author along with the referee reports. Authors revise the article in line with the recommendations given by the referees and upload all revisions to the system as a response letter to the referee. The final revised version of the articles that pass this review is re-evaluated by the journal editorship and field editors, and the issue in which they will be published is decided. An acceptance letter is sent to the relevant author and the article is placed in the printing queue.
After the article is sent to the journal for publication, none of the authors can be deleted from the author list without the written permission of all authors, and no name can be added as an author and the author order cannot be changed.
The evaluation process for the article takes approximately 3 months.
Process for Retraction of an Article
• For unpublished articles
Articles can only be retracted if they have not been officially published. To retract a manuscript, authors must write a clear and concise letter explaining why the manuscript should be retracted, and the letter must be signed by all authors. The journal reserves the right to withdraw an article due to plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, or other violations of ethical rules.
• For published articles
Articles published on the journal website may be withdrawn. In its place, a note signed by the authors titled “Retraction: [article title]” will be published on the website as part of the next issue. The HTML version will be removed.