Ethical considerations in anaesthesia journals

It has been shown that instructions to authors in nonanaesthesia biomedical journals often fail to require authors to state that the study was approve d by an ethics committee and informed consent obtained from participants; a rticles also often omit mentioning these points. We examined 11 English-lan guage journals, which are listed in the 'Anesthesiology' category of 1995 S CI Journal Citation Reports, to see whether the instructions to authors of anaesthesia journals mention the following ethical factors: approval of the study by an ethics committee, informed consent, redundant publication, fra ud, authorship, conflict of interest and protection of patients' privacy. W e also examined 673 articles which appeared ill these anaesthesia journals (July to December issues of 1996) to see whether they stated acquirement of ethics committee approval and informed consent. All journals addressed the avoidance of redundant publications and unjustifiable authorship. Ten jour nals required approval of studies and signatures from all authors, eight jo urnals mentioned informed consent. Only seven required the disclosure of an ); conflict of interest and the protection of patients' privacy. More than 90% of the articles stated that the study was approved and informed consent obtained.