Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Journal of Clinical Psychology Research (JCPR) is committed to maintaining high ethical standards in publishing and adheres to the following principles of publication ethics and malpractice prevention, based on Community on Publication Ethics (COPE) Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. The journal’s policies ensure best practices across all aspects of the editorial process, protecting the integrity of the scientific record.

Authorship and Contribution: We require that all authors listed on submitted manuscripts have made significant contributions to the research and its presentation. Authorship disputes are managed according to established procedures, ensuring fairness and transparency. A detailed description of each author’s contributions to the manuscript should be provided to ensure accountability. Common contribution categories include conceptualization, methodology, data analysis, writing, and supervision. Every individual listed as an author must meet the authorship criteria established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE - www.icmje.org). The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria, which are adopted by JCPR:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work
2. Drafting the work or reviewing it critically for important intellectual content
3. Final approval of the version to be published
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Conflicts of Interest: Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose any financial, non-financial, or personal relationships or interests that may bias their work. The journal provides clear guidelines for handling conflicts of interest to ensure objectivity and transparency throughout the publication process.

Ethical Oversight: The journal ensures that research involving human participants, animals, sensitive data, or biological material complies with recognized ethical standards. Authors must provide appropriate ethical approvals and consents where applicable. The name of the committee and the approval/reference number/date should be provided when submitting the manuscript to the journal. 

Informed Consent: The journal requires that authors confirm that all human participants involved in their research have provided informed consent before the study's initiation. This includes ensuring that participants were fully informed about the research's purpose, procedures, risks, and benefits, and that their participation was voluntary. For research involving vulnerable populations or minors, appropriate consent from guardians or legal representatives must be obtained. Authors must include a statement in their manuscript affirming that informed consent was acquired in compliance with ethical standards and relevant regulations.

Intellectual Property: The journal respects the intellectual property rights of authors, ensuring that their work is properly attributed. It actively combats plagiarism and will take corrective actions, including issuing retractions or corrections if intellectual property violations are discovered.

Handling Allegations of Research Misconduct: The journal follows a strict protocol for dealing with allegations of research misconduct, including but not limited to data fabrication, plagiarism, and citation manipulation. All allegations are investigated thoroughly and appropriate corrective actions, including retractions or corrections, will be taken as necessary.

Data Availability and Reproducibility: Authors are encouraged to share data, methodology, and materials related to their research to promote reproducibility. The journal supports data availability statements and encourages authors to deposit datasets in publicly accessible repositories.

Funding Disclosure: Authors are required to disclose all sources of financial support for their research, including grants, institutional funding, and sponsorships. This transparency ensures that readers are aware of potential influences or conflicts of interest. Authors must provide a detailed statement outlining any financial contributions that have supported the research, and they should confirm that the funding body had no involvement in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, or publication process unless explicitly stated.

Trial Registration: For studies involving clinical trials, the journal requires that trials be registered in a publicly accessible trial registry before participant recruitment. Authors must provide the trial registration number and name of the registry (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov) in their manuscript. This ensures transparency in the conduct of clinical trials and allows for independent verification of the study’s protocol and outcomes, in line with international guidelines such as the CONSORT Statement.

Corrections and Retractions: If errors, ethical breaches, or research misconduct are identified in published work, the journal will issue corrections, retractions, or expressions of concern, as appropriate. The integrity of the scholarly record is a priority, and all corrections will be made in a timely manner.

Post-publication Discussions: The journal supports ongoing scholarly discourse and encourages post-publication discussions and corrections. Readers may submit concerns or additional insights regarding published papers, which will be reviewed by the editorial board.

Complaints and Appeals: The journal provides a clear mechanism for authors, reviewers, and readers to raise complaints and appeals regarding editorial decisions. Complaints are handled promptly and fairly by the editorial board, following established policies.

Archiving: The journal is committed to the long-term preservation of its published content. To this end, all published articles are archived in trusted and internationally recognized third-party repositories or digital preservation services-LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe). This service is provided to the journal by "DergiPark" which is a Turkish journal submission and hosting platform managed by TUBITAK ULAKBIM, which provides services for academic and scientific journals in Turkey. This ensures that even in the event of technological failures or journal closure, the scholarly record remains accessible for future researchers.

Revenue Sources and Business Model: The journal operates under a transparent business model, with clear disclosure of all revenue sources on its website. The journal does not have any revenue, including author fees, subscriptions, advertising, reprints, and support from institutions or organizations.

Advertising Policy: If relevant, the journal maintains a clear and transparent advertising policy. Advertisements may be accepted based on specific criteria, including their relevance to the journal’s audience and their adherence to ethical standards. The journal does not have any advertising agreement to declare. 

Direct Marketing: This journal does not engage in direct marketing activities, including unsolicited manuscript solicitations. Information about the journal and its policies is provided transparently on our website to ensure authors and readers have access to accurate and reliable information.

Publication Ethics Policy Requirements

1. All researchers who contribute to the JCPR are obliged to comply with all kinds of research and publication ethics practices in line with the ethical regulations published by the American Psychological Association and the Turkish Psychologists Association. In addition, this journal declares to follow the recommendations of the International Standards of the Committee on Publication (COPE) for Editors and Authors and takes into account in its publications. Please click for detailed information.
2. In original articles and case reports submitted to the JCPR, Ethics approval information (i.e., the name of the ethics committee, the number and date of ethics committee decision) must be included in the Procedure or Sample part in the Method section as well as under the subheading “Compliance with Ethical Principles” just before the References section. Moreover, an (official) document of ethics approval should be uploaded as a file under the name of “ethicsapproval” via the online submission system (i.e., Additional Files).

Please meet the following ethical rules and principles adopted by the journal before submitting:

• All manuscripts submitted to this journal should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full) unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work.
• The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
• Author(s) are responsible for the opinions expressed in the manuscripts.
• A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time.
• Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification, or inappropriate data manipulation.
• No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). The authors should cite all scientific work used in the text.
• Before a manuscript is submitted, all authors should approve the final version of the manuscript.
• All authors are responsible for the accuracy of the study’s findings.
• The order of the authors should be determined before the article is submitted. Please note that any change request in authorship should be explained in detail and that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.
• For each article published in the JCPR, researchers are obliged to keep the data of the study for 5(five) years. If deemed necessary, the data and analysis files can be requested from the authors.
• Authors are obliged to report a potential conflict of interest (e.g., institutions that fund the study).
• All authors are requested to include information regarding informed consent if the study involved human participants.
• Reviewers or Editors are obliged to reject the article if they suspect that these ethical rules are not followed and withdraw the article if the article has been published. Withdrawal of the article means that the article continues to appear online but is flagged as being withdrawn for ethical reasons.
• All articles published in the JCPR can be cited only by using appropriate referencing. Individuals or organizations that cite and publish erroneous information in the content of the quoted articles are responsible before the law.
  
  

Peer Review Policy

• JCPR is a peer-reviewed scientific journal. All manuscripts submitted to the Journal are first reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief. Approximately 40% of the reviewed manuscripts are rejected without proceeding to a further peer-review evaluation, as they are considered not to be related to the scope of the journal or do not have the quality to be published. For all other manuscripts, an Editor (or Associate Editor) is assigned from the Editorial Board according to their subject. Manuscripts decided to proceed to peer review are sent to at least two reviewers.
• This journal follows a DOUBLE-BLIND procedure. That is, the author(s) of the manuscript do not know to which reviewers the manuscript is sent, and the reviewers assigned to the manuscript do not know which author(s) the manuscript belongs to. The authors, therefore, are requested not to share any self-identifying information or citations in the text (please make sure you remove personal information on your Word document and upload the title page as a separate file to the Additional Files section.
• The Editor assigned to the manuscript decides to accept, reject or revise it based on the suggestions or comments from the reviewers. Please note that a decision of revision does not imply or guarantee that the revised manuscript will be accepted. Revised articles are reviewed by the Editor (if necessary, they will be forwarded to the Reviewers again) and a decision of acceptance, rejection, or re-revision is made.
• In this journal, the average time from submission to first decision is 50 days and the average time from submission to acceptance is 120 days. Please click for detailed information on journal metrics.

Post-Acceptance Process

Upon acceptance, the following steps will take place respectively: (1) DOI assignment; (2) Turkish and English language editing; (3) Adaptation of the manuscript to journal format and typesetting; (4) Proofreading and (5) Publishing online under "Articles in Press."

Copyright Transfer

The copyright for printed or electronic copies of the articles accepted for publication is transferred to the Association of Clinical Psychology Research. After the acceptance of the manuscript, the "JCPR Copyright Transfer Form" must be signed by the corresponding author and uploaded to the online submission system (See Copyright Transfer Policy).

Language Editing

The text must be written in a good and understandable language for Editors and Reviewers to accurately evaluate your work. If you have written your article in English, you can seek help from a native English speaker/colleague or use professional English Language Proofreading services (Please note that the use of a language editing service is not a requirement for publication in this journal).
After your article is accepted for publication, it will be reviewed by the JCPR’s Language Editors in terms of clarity, grammar, and spelling and necessary corrections will be made, which is followed by typesetting.

Proof Reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, figure captions, and figures. Substantial changes in content (e.g., new results, corrected values, title, and authorship) are not allowed without the approval of the Editor. The time provided to the author(s) for proofreading is 7 days.

Online First

Accepted articles will be published online (without a volume and issue) after receipt of the corrected proofs, with an assigned DOI. Articles published online are placed in the queue for publication.