A Comparison of Conflict of Interest Policies at Peer-Reviewed Journals in Different Scientific Disciplines

This article presents the results of a survey of high-impact peer-reviewed journals in twelve different scientific disciplines to compare their conflict of interest policies. The authors found that out of eighty-four journals, only twenty eight had published policies, through a number of journals when contacted did respond that they did have such a policy. The authors found that frequency of policies varied among disciplines, with medical journals being the likeliest to have one and physics the least likely. Having a policy was correlated with the ranking of the journal, the highest impact journal in a discipline having a policy, as well as a reported history of conflict of interest problems. The authors found that though there was an increase in journals having conflict of interest policies from a study done in 1997, there is a further need for these policies to be readily available and to include a clear definition of conflict of interest and details about how disclosures would be managed during peer review and publication.