Informed consent for publication

Informed consent

In any clinical study, the authors must confirm authorisation from the corresponding ethics committee as well as written informed consent (or exemption of such requirement from said ethics committee).

When publishing clinical cases, authors obtain patient authorisation to publish the case and must ensure no identifiable data is included. Photographs must be non-identifying (if the patient's face is included, the eyes must be covered with opaque black tape) and written authorisation must also be obtained from the patient for the publication of such photographs.

One of the defining characteristics of clinical cases, in general, is their particularity. While their reproducibility makes them useful for forming and drawing conclusions that enable the identification of clinical behaviours and their application to new patients, therein lies the social and scientific benefit of their discovery and their application to diagnosis and therapeutic correspondence.

However, this particularity, as well as the local vulnerability of computerised file storage systems, means that clinical cases, and their protagonists, are more easily identifiable than those included in larger series.

These characteristics make it necessary, from the perspective of potential identification and in the interest of ideal bioethical conduct, to make a significant effort to guarantee the protection of any individual data that could possibly identify individuals.

For this reason, RECCMI requires the following conditions of the authors of the cases it publishes:

• If there exists any possibility to directly identify a patient or patients (photographs, videos, etc.), express authorisation for participation must accompany the final version submitted to RECCMI.
• In all cases and for all articles, the authors must have and maintain possession of the corresponding informed consent for publication.