Conflict Of Interest Policy

• VIMS Journal of Physical Therapy policy generally follows those of the ICMJE Recommendations.
• Conflicts of interest (sometimes referred to as competing interests or dual loyalties) are common, some would say almost inevitable.
• Conflicts of interest are secondary interests (eg personal, commercial, political, academic or financial) that may influence judgment on a primary decision, in this case what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived.
• Financial interests may include employment, research funding, sponsorship, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies, company support for staff commissioning/ funding/sponsoring of any element of the paper, any financial or potential financial benefit, or PR firm involvement.
•  All authors are requested to complete a conflict of interest form prior to submission of their manuscript online. Conflict of interest is defined as those factors which influence authors, peer-reviewers and editors, including personal, commercial, political, academic or financial interest.
• Peer reviewers and editors must declare and avoid these conflicts or competing interests during the submission and assessment of manuscripts.
• For additional guidance please refer to ICMJE’s ‘‘Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals’’ and  COPE’s “Responsible research publication: international standards for authors”. 
• VIMSJPT requests authors to provide a financial funding statement and potential conflict of interest disclosure before submission of the manuscript.