Ethical oversight
Studies that are to be considered for publication in Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association must have the necessary research ethics permits, and an account of ethical considerations and privacy concerns must be provided in the manuscript.
In addition, Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association will always make its own publication ethics assessments. It must be stated whether the study have been assessed and/or approved by Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK) . Any processing of personal data must be performed in accordance with the Act relating to the processing of personal data (Personal Data Act). As a rule, the person responsible for the study has a duty to seek advice and guidance from the Data Protection Official. All necessary authorisations related to the use of personal data must be described in a separate section of the article. In addition, other necessary research ethics clarifications must be explained in the cover letter.
Pre-registration of clinical trials
As a general rule, Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association wants researchers to register clinical trials in a public registry.
Journal of the Norwegian Psychological Association adheres to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ (ICMJE) recommendations regarding which trials must be registered and which registries are acceptable. A clinical trial is defined as any research project in which people or a group of people are prospectively assigned to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparisons or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome.
Normally, a registration number from one of the approved international databases for such trials should be available, for example the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) or ClinicalTrials.gov.
If no pre-registration or post-registration is available, this must be specified in the ethics section of the manuscript.