Ethical standards adopted by Brazilian journals of medical specialties

Objective: To review ethical standards contained in guidelines to authors of Brazilian scientific journals in several medical specialties and see if there is any standardization available. Methods: This is an exploratory study evaluating Brazilian scientific journals classified on the Portal of Journals on Health Sciences of the Virtual Health Library in all medical specialties regarding guidelines to authors submitting manuscripts and concerning ethical standards for research in humans. Data were collected and categorized for the presence of the following variables: Ethics Committee approval; Helsinki Declaration and/or Resolution 196/96, informed consent; ethical standards; uniform requirements; patients' confidentiality and no ethical references. The association among the variables was also examined. Results: Out of a total of 8,701 journals, 95 were included in the current study. The variables were investigated, with each one's frequency being verified. Eighty per cent were referred for an Ethics Committee approval; 43.15% of Helsinki Declaration; 43.15% of informed consent; 9.47% of ethical standards; 32.63% of uniform requirements and 15.78% of patients' confidentiality were referenced. In the whole sampling, 9.47% of journals do not mention any ethical reference as a guide to authors submitting manuscripts. An association among variables occurred in 61% of the sample. Conclusion: Ethical aspects of submitting manuscripts were mentioned in over 90% of the guides to authors of national scientific journals and no standardization at all is available.