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Biochemia Medica is an open access journal that does not charge manuscript processing or publishing. All editorial staff are continuously educated and directed to follow the highest ethical and scholarly publishing standards in all steps of the manuscript processing. They are all laboratory medicine professionals, who apart from their regular jobs, are in charge of different phases in Journal processing as volunteers. The publisher of the Journal is scientific and professional association of laboratory medicine professionals, Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory medicine (CSMBLM). During November and December 2018, without knowledge of the editorial staff, unknown perpetrator(s) downloaded a respectable number of articles published in Biochemia Medica as PDF and launched an illegal web page under the same journal name with downloaded articles. Although this was a very harmful experience, we have learned a lot from it and we would like to share this with scientific journals’ community. Therefore, we would like to share this harmful experience, and to present a short workflow on how to manage situations like this if it will be necessary for any scientific journal in the future.

This paper deliberates on the place and role of informed consent in everyday clinical laboratory practice. Taking into account interna-tional ethical guidelines such as the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association, and Croatian national laws and codes such as the Act on the Protection of Patients’ Rights, the Act on Medical Biochemistry, the Code of Ethics of Medical Biochemists and Medical Deontology, the Act on Healthcare Services, and the Code of Ethics of the Croatian Chamber of Healthcare Workers, an overview is given on the actual implementation of the aforemen-tioned recommendations and regulations. A distinction between consent to a medical procedure and consent to enrolment in a re-search protocol is strongly stressed out. Special emphasis is placed on the role of specialists in laboratory medicine and masters of medical biochemistry in the process of obtaining informed consent. The design of an ‘informed consent interview’ is to be taken into consideration. Additional deliberation is needed on the option of ‘broad consent’. It is concluded that informed consent should repre-sent an important and routine activity within Croatian clinical laboratories., Rad se bavi mjestom i ulogom informiranog pristanka u svakodnevnoj kliničkoj laboratorijskoj praksi. Uzimajući u obzir međunarodne etičke smjernice kao što su UNESCO-va Opća deklaracija o bioetici i ljudskim pravima, Helsinška deklaracija Svjetskog medicinskog udruženja te hrvatske nacionalne zakone i kodekse kao što su Zakon o zaštiti prava pacijenata, Zakon o medicinsko-biokemijskoj djelatnosti, Etički kodeks medicinskih biokemičara i medicinske deontologije, Zakon o djelatnostima u zdravstvu te Etički kodeks Hrvatske komore zdravstvenih radnika daje se pregled aktualne primjene navedenih preporuka i propisa. Naglašava se potreba za razlikovanjem pristanka na medicinski postupak od pristanka na sudjelovanje u istraživanju. Ističe se uloga specijalista laboratorijske medicine i magistara medicinske biokemije u procesu informi-ranog pristanka. Sugerira se kreiranje ‘intervjua informiranog pristanka’. Potrebna je daljnja rasprava o mogućnosti uvođenja ‘opće suglasnos-ti’. Zaključno, informirani pristanak trebao bi predstavljati značajnu i uobičajenu aktivnost u kliničkim laboratorijima u Hrvatskoj.

Studies with positive results are greatly more represented in literature than studies with negative results, producing so-called publication bias. This review aims to discuss occurring problems around negative results and to emphasize the importance of reporting negative results. Underreporting of negative results introduces bias into meta-analysis, which consequently misinforms researchers, doctors and policymakers. More resources are potentially wasted on already disputed research that remains unpublished and therefore unavailable to the scientific community. Ethical obligations need to be considered when reporting results of studies on human subjects as people have exposed themselves to risk with the assurance that the study is performed to benefit others. Some studies disprove the common conception that journal editors preferably publish positive findings, which are considered as more citable. Therefore, all stakeholders, but especially researchers, need to be conscious of disseminating negative and positive findings alike.

Peer review is widely used system for evaluating manuscripts prior to publication. It has been and still is widely used tool for making justified and fair editorial decision. However, the evidence of its efficacy is limited and it has been criticized to be time-consuming, biased, inconsistent, conservative, and open to abuse. As a result, researchers, editors and policymakers have questioned its objectivity and purpose. Nevertheless, this should not be the reason for abandoning the principles of peer review, but to make the additional efforts towards its improvement. Therefore, this Research Integrity Corner aims to describe basic principles of peer review and to introduce Biochemia Medica’s guidelines for peer reviewers. Our intention is to help our peer reviewers provide evaluations that are as fair and objective as possible, while helping the journal publish innovative research of the highest quality

Phlebotomy is one of the most complex medical procedures in the diagnosis, management and treatment of patients in healthcare. Since laboratory test results are the basis for a large proportion (60-80%) of medical decisions, any error in the phlebotomy process could have serious consequences. In order to minimize the possibility of errors, phlebotomy procedures should be standardised, well-documented and written instructions should be available at every workstation. Croatia is one of the few European countries that have national guidelines for phlebotomy, besides the universally used CLSI (Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute) H3-A6 Procedures for the Collection of Diagnostic Blood Specimens by Venipuncture; approved Standard-Sixth Edition (CLSI, 2007) and WHO (World Health Organization) guidelines on drawing blood: best practices in phlebotomy (WHO, 2010). However, the growing body of evidence in importance of preanalytical phase management resulted in a need for evidence based revision and expansion of existing recommendations. The Croatian Society for Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine, Working Group for the Preanalytical Phase issued this recommendation. This document is based on the CLSI guideline H3-A6, with significant differences and additional information.

Salami publication or segmented publication is a distinct form of redundant publication which is usually characterized by similarity of hypothesis, methodology or results but not text similarity. These aspects of publications are not objectively detected by software applications and therefore present a serious threat to publication ethics. This article presents a practical approach for dealing with manuscripts suspected of salami publication during the submission process and after article publication in Biochemia Medica.

In February 2013, Biochemia Medica has joined CrossRef, which enabled us to implement CrossCheck plagiarism detection service. Therefore, all manuscript submitted to Biochemia Medica are now first assigned to Research integrity editor (RIE), before sending the manuscript for peer-review. RIE submits the text to CrossCheck analysis and is responsible for reviewing the results of the text similarity analysis. Based on the CrossCheck analysis results, RIE subsequently provides a re-commendation to the Editor-in-chief (EIC) on whether the manuscript should be forwarded to peer-review, corrected for suspected parts prior to peer-review or immediately rejected. Final decision on the manuscript is, however, with the EIC. We hope that our new policy and manuscript processing algorithm will help us to further increase the overall quality of our Journal

Self-plagiarism is a controversial issue in scientific writing and presentation of research data. Unlike plagiarism, self-plagiarism is difficult to interpret as intellectual theft under the justification that one cannot steal from oneself. However, academics are concerned, as self-plagiarized papers mislead readers, do not contribute to science, and bring undeserved credit to authors. As such, it should be considered a form of scientific misconduct. In this paper, we explain different forms of self-plagiarism in scientific writing and then present good editorial policy toward questionable material. The importan-ce of dealing with self-plagiarism is emphasized by the recently published proposal of Text Recycling Guidelines by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Plagiarism remains at the top in terms of interest to the scientific community. In its many vicious forms, patchwork plagiarism is characterized by numerous unresolved issues and often passes “below the radar” of editors and reviewers. The problem of detecting the complexity of misconduct has been partially resolved by plagiarism detection software. However, interpretation of relevant reports is not always obvious or easy. This article deals with plagiarism in general and patchwork plagiarism in particular, as well as related problems that editors must deal with to maintain the integrity of scientific journals.

Uvod: Izvananalitička faza izvor je najvećeg djela pogrješaka u laboratorijskoj praksi. Presječno istraživanje temeljeno na upitniku o učestalosti pojedinih postupaka izvananalitičke faze laboratorijskog rada učinjeno je među članovima Hrvatske komore medicinskih biokemičara (HKMB) u svrhu procjene stanja. Materijali i metode: Anonimnim upitnikom s 20 pitanja zatvorenog tipa ispitana je učestalost (Likertova ljestvica; nikad = 1, rijetko = 2,č esto = 3 i uvijek = 4) pojedinih postupaka izvananalitič ke faze laboratorijske dijagnostike među članovima HKMB (N = 538). Odgovori na pitanja izraženi su prosječnom ocjenom 1,00-4,00. Pitanja su nadalje podijeljena u tri skupine te je za svaku izračunata prosječna ocjena: kriteriji prihvatljivosti uzorka, postupci vađenja krvi, izvještavanje nalaza te pitanje o bilježenju nesukladnosti u radu. Rezultati: Udio ispitanika koji su odgovorili na anketu bio je 27%. Od ukupnog broja ispitanika 93% su žene, 58% diplomirani inženjeri medicinske biokemije i 42% specijalisti medicinske biokemije. Prikupljeni su podatci o vrsti ustanove u kojoj djeluje laboratorij te o informatičkoj pismenosti ispitanika. Prosječna ocjena svih postupaka (aritmetička sredina ± standardna devijacija) iznosila je 3,12 ± 0,38. Nema statistički značajne razlike s obzirom na vrstu ustanove, stupanj usavršavanja i informatičku pismenost niti povezanosti prosječne ocjene i dobi. Ocjena postupaka vađenja krvi (2,83 ± 0,46) najniža je od ocjena triju skupina pitanja (P < 0,001), slijedi ocjena izvještavanja rezultata (3,19 ± 0,48) te ocjena kriterija prihvatljivosti uzoraka (3,33 ± 0,49). Nesukladnosti u radu nikad ili rijetko bilježi 21% ispitanika, a često i uvijek 79%. Zaključci: Rezultati upućuju na žurnu potrebu za unaprjeđenjem postupaka izvananalitičke faze laboratorijske dijagnostike, napose postupaka u svezi s vađenjem krvi. Za postizanje visokih standarda kvalitete nužna je intenzivna izobrazba sveg osoblja uključenog u sve faze laboratorijske dijagnos, Introduction: Extra-analytical phase is the source of most of the errors in laboratory practice. A cross-sectional survey study was performed among members of Croatian Chamber of Medical Biochemists (CCMB) aimed to investigate the status of extra-analytical phase in Croatia. Materials and methods: Results were collected from members of CCMB (N = 538) using anonymous questionnaire with 20 Likert scaled questions testing self-reported frequency (never = 1, rarely = 2, often = 3, always = 4) of procedures of the pre-analytical phase. Answers were expressed as average score ranging from 1.00 to 4.00 for all questions. Questions were further divided in three groups, which average score was calculated accordingly: criteria of acceptance of sample, procedures of phlebotomy, test results reporting. Question on recording of nonconformities was separately evaluated. Results: The response rate was 27%. Subject were 93% women, 58% medical biochemists with master degree and 42% specialist in medical biochemistry. Type of institution and informatics skills were also recorded. The average overall score was (mean ± standard deviation) 3.12 ± 0.38. There was no difference regarding type of laboratory institution, professional degree or computer skills and no correlation between score and age. Procedures of phlebotomy score (2.83 ± 0.46) achieved the lowest (P < 0.001) out of the three scores calculated (criteria of acceptance of sample: 3.33 ± 0.49; reporting of results 3.19 ± 0.48). Twenty one percent of participants never or rarely record nonconformities, whereas 79% often or always do. Conclusion: Results clearly highlight the urgent need for improving activities in the extra-analytical phase, especially phlebotomy procedures. Reinforced education of all the personnel involved, appropriate recording and monitoring of extra-analytical phase is necessary to reach high quality standards.