ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
The SDU Journal of Health Management observes the publication ethics principles, standards and recommendations determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Accordingly, all articles that do not comply with accepted ethical standards are removed from publication. This also includes articles containing possible irregularities or misconduct detected after publication. Within the scope of publication ethics, all stakeholders are expected to bear the following ethical responsibilities in summary, and all kinds of ethical cases will be evaluated in accordance with COPE rules.

Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

1. Authors must ensure that the articles they submit to the journal have not been previously published elsewhere and have not been submitted for publication elsewhere.
2. Authors are obliged to properly indicate all sources they have used and all quotations they have made in their studies.
3. Authors declare that the article is their own work, that they have not committed plagiarism in any way, that all responsibilities arising from plagiarism belong to them, and that the journal has no responsibility in this regard.
4. Authors must guarantee that they have made scientific contributions to the article and accept that all authors bear equal responsibility for the study.
5. The corresponding author must guarantee that all co-authors mentioned in the article have agreed to participate in the publication and to be listed as co-authors. Those who have made significant contributions to the study should be listed as co-authors, while other contributors should be included in the acknowledgements section.
6. Authors are responsible for clearly declaring the institutions supporting their study, financial resources, and any conflicts of interest, if any.
7. If deemed necessary, authors should provide access to the datasets used in the article.
8. Authors must prepare the articles submitted to the journal in accordance with the Directive on Scientific Research and Publication Ethics of Higher Education Institutions. In addition, for clinical and experimental human or animal studies requiring ethics committee approval, the necessary permissions must be obtained, clearly stated in the article, and documented.

Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

1. A reviewer selected to review a study should inform the editor and withdraw from the review duty if they think they do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate the study or cannot evaluate the article in a timely manner.
2. Reviewers must evaluate the articles sent to them within the framework of confidentiality and must not use the information obtained during the review process for personal interests.
3. Reviewers should not share reports or information about the article they evaluate with third parties and should not communicate directly with the authors without the permission of the editor.
4. Reviewers should be careful about possible ethical issues in the article and should report any situations they detect to the editor. This includes significant similarities or overlaps between the evaluated study and other published studies known by the reviewer.
5. The evaluation process should be carried out in an impartial and objective manner. Personal criticism of authors should be avoided; comments should be expressed in a constructive, respectful and honest manner.
6. Reviewers should consult the editor before accepting to evaluate an article in which they may have a potential conflict of interest arising from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Editorial Board

1. The editorial board should take care to establish clear and understandable communication with reviewers, authors, academics and readers by observing the principle of transparency in scientific publishing.
2. The editorial board should protect the confidentiality of personal information of authors and reviewers by adhering to blind review and evaluation policies and ensure that the evaluation process is carried out impartially within the specified periods.
3. During the evaluation process, the editorial board should carefully examine possible conflicts of interest or collaborations between authors and reviewers and take necessary precautions.
4. Protection of human and animal rights should be considered as a fundamental principle in submitted articles. It should be emphasized that explicit and documented consent of participants must be obtained. Studies without ethics committee approval or experimental research permission should be excluded from evaluation.
5. The selection of articles to be published in the journal is the responsibility of the editorial board. During the evaluation process, authors should be considered regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political views. Decisions should be made based on the scientific accuracy, validity, importance of the article and its suitability to the scope of the journal. Legal regulations regarding issues such as defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism should also be taken into account.
6. Editors or members of the editorial board should share information about the article only with relevant authors, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisors and publishers; no information should be shared with third parties.
7. Unpublished content obtained during the evaluation process should not be used by editors or editorial board members in their own research without the explicit and written permission of the author.

Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher

1. Süleyman Demirel University, the publisher of the SDU Journal of Health Management, is a non-profit public university and acts with awareness of its ethical responsibilities regarding the journal’s publication processes.
2. In terms of Süleyman Demirel University, the editorial board is responsible for all evaluation and publication processes of the studies submitted to the journal. Accordingly, the editorial board has the authority to make decisions without considering economic or political interests.
3. Süleyman Demirel University undertakes to ensure that the editorial board makes its decisions independently, impartially and transparently.
4. Süleyman Demirel University is obliged to take necessary measures to prevent ethical violations such as scientific misconduct, citation manipulation and plagiarism that may arise regarding the editorial board.

Relations with Readers

1. Editors should consider the expectations of knowledge, skills and experience of all readers, researchers and practitioners in decision-making processes.
2. It should be ensured that published studies are original research that contributes to readers, researchers, practitioners and the scientific literature.
3. Editors are responsible for considering feedback from readers, researchers and practitioners and providing explanatory and informative responses when necessary.

Relations with Authors

1. Editors should base their decisions on criteria such as the scientific importance, originality, validity, clarity of expression and suitability to the aims and scope of the journal when making positive or negative decisions about articles.
2. Studies that are within the scope of the journal should be taken into the preliminary evaluation stage unless there is a serious problem.
3. Editors should not ignore positive evaluations of reviewers unless there is a situation contrary to academic writing and publication principles.
4. Newly appointed editors should not change decisions made by previous editor(s) unless there is a valid and important reason.
5. The “Blind Review and Evaluation Process” should be clearly published and editors should take necessary measures to prevent possible deviations in this process.
6. Editors should publish a detailed “Author Guide” containing all information authors may need and update this guide periodically.
7. Notifications to authors should be communicated in a clear, understandable and informative manner.

Relations with Reviewers

1. Reviewer assignments should be made considering the subject and area of expertise of the study.
2. Reviewers should be provided with the guidelines and information they may need during the evaluation process.
3. Possible conflicts of interest between authors and reviewers should be considered.
4. Reviewer identities should be kept confidential in accordance with the blind review principle.
5. Reviewers should be encouraged to make evaluations in an impartial and scientific manner.
6. Reviewer performance should be monitored based on criteria such as timely response and quality of evaluation.
7. Policies and practices should be developed to improve reviewer performance.
8. The reviewer pool should be regularly and dynamically updated.
9. Unscientific, unethical and discourteous evaluations should not be allowed.
10. A wide reviewer pool covering different fields of expertise should be established.

Relations with the Editorial Board

1. Editors should ensure that editorial board members carry out processes in accordance with the journal’s publication policies and guidelines.
2. Editorial board members should be informed about the journal’s publication policies and developments.
3. New editorial board members should be informed about publication policies and provided with necessary guidance.
4. Editorial board members should be encouraged to evaluate in an impartial and independent manner.
5. New editorial board members should be selected from among individuals who can contribute to the journal and have appropriate academic qualifications.
6. Articles sent to editorial board members for evaluation should be compatible with their areas of expertise.
7. Editors should maintain continuous communication and interaction with the editorial board.
8. Meetings should be held periodically with the editorial board in order to develop publication policies and advance the journal.

Relations with the Journal Owner and Publisher
The relationship between editors and the publisher is conducted on the basis of the principle of editorial independence.

Reporting Unethical Situations
In case of encountering any unethical behavior or content within or outside the ethical principles stated in the SDU Journal of Health Management, notification should be made by sending an e-mail to saglikyonetimidergisi@sdu.edu.tr.

PUBLICATION POLICY

Scope

1. The SDU Journal of Health Management, published within Süleyman Demirel University, is published twice a year (June and December) in a peer-reviewed e-journal format.
2. Research and review articles covering all topics in the field of health management can be submitted to the journal. However, the number of published review articles cannot exceed 25% of the total articles. The determination of the article type depends on the evaluation of the editorial board, not on the author’s declaration.
3. Studies presented at congresses or symposiums and published in full text in the proceedings book are not accepted to the journal. Papers whose full texts have not been published may be submitted provided that this is clearly stated.
4. A maximum of 5 authors can be included in studies submitted to the journal. Articles with more than five authors are not considered for evaluation.
5. An author cannot have articles published in two consecutive issues within the same year. Authors who submit more than one article in the same year are deemed to have accepted this rule.
6. A maximum of 25% of the published articles may belong to authors from the same institution. If this ratio is exceeded, the publication process is planned by considering criteria such as submission date, type, subject and publication language of the articles.
7. Applications of studies that do not comply with ethical rules and publication policy are not accepted. If any deficiency is detected at any stage of the evaluation process, the article is rejected.
8. Opinions and thoughts expressed in the articles published in the journal belong to the authors and do not reflect the opinion of the journal.

Fee Policy

1. No submission or evaluation fee is charged for articles submitted to the journal.

Plagiarism Policy

1. In order for an article to be included in the peer review process:
   1. Total similarity rate must be below 20%,
   2. Artificial intelligence (AI) usage rate must be below 35%,
   3. Similarity rate from a single source must be at most 5%.
2. Plagiarism control is carried out by the journal, and authors are not required to submit an additional plagiarism report.
3. Articles with a similarity rate above 35% are directly rejected. For articles with similarity rates between 20% and 35%, the corresponding author is requested to make necessary corrections.
4. Authors who submit their articles are deemed to have accepted that there is no plagiarism in the study, that all responsibility belongs to them in case of possible plagiarism, and that the journal has no obligation in this regard.

Special Issue Publication Policy

1. In addition to regularly published issues, the journal may publish special issues within a specific theme or consisting of scientific event papers such as congresses/symposiums.
2. The total number of special issues cannot exceed one-third of the journal’s regular publication period. However, special issues containing only congress abstract papers are not included in this limitation.
3. Guest editors may be assigned in special issues.
4. The journal’s ethical rules, publication policy and writing rules also apply to special issues. However, in special issues;
   o The 25% limit applied to review articles,
   o The rule that an author cannot publish articles in two consecutive issues within the same year,
   o The rule that a maximum of 25% of the published articles can belong to the same institution are not applied.

Submission Process

1. Articles must be prepared in Turkish or English.
2. Studies must be written using the article template available on the journal’s website.
3. Articles prepared in accordance with writing rules must be submitted via the DergiPark system.
4. During submission; the article submission form signed by all authors, the ethics committee approval form and the artificial intelligence (AI) usage declaration must be uploaded to the system. In addition, authors must add their academic title, institutional information, contact information and ORCID ID completely to the system.
5. Authors who cannot upload via DergiPark may request technical support via saglıkyonetimidergisi@sdu.edu.tr.

Ethical Declarations

1. Studies submitted to the journal must be prepared in accordance with research and publication ethics principles.
2. Authors are obliged to consider the principles, standards and guidelines determined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
3. It is prohibited for the entire article or a part of it to be written by artificial intelligence (AI) tools. AI tools may only be used for supportive purposes such as creating figures/graphs, language and spelling correction or improving readability. In such cases, it should be clearly stated how and to what extent the AI tool was used.
4. In line with the opinions of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) and JAMA Network, artificial intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors. Since AI tools cannot assume legal and ethical responsibility, they do not meet authorship criteria. In studies where AI is used, the name of the relevant tool and how it is used should be clearly stated in the method (or equivalent) section. However, the responsibility of the content of the articles belongs entirely to the authors.
5. Ethics committee approval is required for all qualitative and quantitative studies in which data is collected from participants through methods such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, observations, experiments or meetings, regardless of the date of the study.
6. For clinical and experimental studies conducted on humans or animals, ethics committee approval must be obtained separately, stated in the article and documented. In studies requiring ethics committee approval, the name of the committee, date and decision number should be included in the method section and also on the first or last page of the article. Studies without the required ethics committee document are not evaluated and are rejected.
7. In articles, author contribution statement, if any support and acknowledgement statements and conflict of interest declaration must be stated.

Evaluation Process
Articles submitted to the journal go through three main stages: preliminary control, peer review and publication process.

1. Articles are first examined in the preliminary control stage and this process is completed within 30 days at the latest from the submission date. At this stage, compliance with ethical principles, publication policy and writing rules is checked. As a result, it may be decided to include the article in the peer review process, to continue the process provided that deficiencies are corrected, or to reject it directly.
2. In cases where correction is requested, authors must make the necessary corrections within a maximum of 30 days. If no revision is made within this period, the evaluation is terminated and the article is rejected.
3. In order for articles at the preliminary control stage to proceed to the evaluation process, the similarity rate must be below 20% and the AI rate below 35%.
4. Studies that pass the preliminary control are taken into the evaluation stage. At the beginning of this stage, the editorial board or field editor examines the article in terms of quality, originality and scientific contribution and decides within 10 days at the latest whether to start the peer review process or to reject it without sending it to reviewers.
5. Articles for which the peer review process is initiated are sent to at least two reviewers within the framework of a double-blind review system for examination in terms of content and form. Author and reviewer identities are kept mutually confidential.
6. Reviewers are expected to decide within 10 days whether they can evaluate the article; if they accept, they are expected to submit their reports within 30 days. Reviewers who do not respond within the given period are granted a maximum of two additional periods of 10 days each. If no response is received, a new reviewer is assigned. In case of second or third round evaluations, the same periods are applied again.
7. According to reviewer reports, it is decided to accept the article, request revision from the author or reject the article. If revision is requested, authors must submit the revised text and a revision report summarizing the changes within 1 month at the latest. Studies not submitted within the period are rejected.
8. If one reviewer report is positive and the other is negative, the editorial board may apply to a third reviewer or decide to reject the article based on existing reports. In order for an article to be published, it is mandatory to receive positive opinions from at least two reviewers.
9. Articles that successfully complete the peer review stage are subjected to plagiarism and AI control again. Studies that comply with the determined rates are accepted and included in the publication process.
10. During the publication process, articles are planned in line with the decision of the editorial board by considering criteria such as submission date, article type, subject and publication language. Requests by authors to bring forward the publication date are not taken into consideration. The SDU Journal of Health Management does not collect articles for a specific issue and accepts submissions throughout the year.
11. Typesetting and layout processes are initiated for articles whose publication order has come. After these processes are completed, the text is sent to the authors for final control.
12. After author feedback, the article is checked one last time by the layout editor and is published by assigning a DOI number.
13. If authors do not respond within the specified period, the article may be postponed to the next issue or published in its current form by decision of the editorial board.

Correction and Retraction Policy

1. Authors have the right to withdraw their articles at all stages until the evaluation process is completed and the publication stage begins.
2. After publication, a request for withdrawal or correction may be made by the authors or the editorial board. These applications are evaluated in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
3. If minor errors that do not affect the findings, interpretations or results of a published article are detected, a correction may be published. However, if there are serious errors or ethical violations that invalidate the results, retraction of the article may be considered.
4. In case of suspicion of a situation contrary to research or publication ethics, if there is evidence that the findings are unreliable and the institution to which the authors are affiliated does not investigate the issue or the process is insufficient, the editorial board may publish an “expression of concern”.

Open Access and Copyright Policy

1. The SDU Journal of Health Management provides immediate open access to all its content with the understanding that making scientific knowledge freely accessible will strengthen global knowledge sharing.
2. The journal adopts the open access model and accepts the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).
3. In accordance with the BOAI definition, it is essential that peer-reviewed scientific studies are accessible via the internet without any financial, legal or technical barriers. Within this scope, content can be read, downloaded, copied, reproduced, distributed, printed, linked in full text, indexed and used for different purposes within legal limits. Authors and copyright holders are deemed to have accepted users’ right of free access.
4. All articles published in the journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
5. Within the scope of this license, the copyright of the articles belongs to the authors. However, provided that proper attribution is made, the works may be copied, shared, distributed, displayed and used for all legal purposes including commercial use.