Recent events in academic and scholarly publishing have called into question the integrity of published articles because of perceived or real conflicts of interest on the part of the authors. Many professional journals have responded by requiring authors to report potential conflicts of interest when submitting their manuscript for consideration and publishing these statements in accepted articles. Although the implementation of these disclosure policies has brought much-needed transparency to the various relationships among authors, institutions, industry, and grant providers, there has not been a consistent process for the collection and publication of conflict of interest information.

In response to the need to standardize the collection and dissemination of conflict of interest information, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) developed an electronic uniform disclosure form in October 2009. The ICMJE member journals piloted the form and received feedback from authors, editors, and other interested parties. A revised form was developed on the basis of this feedback, and the ICMJE is now encouraging journals to adopt the uniform disclosure form.

The editors and editorial board of the Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal applaud the effort of the ICMJE and support the implementation of the new form. Completion of this form is now required for every author listed on all manuscripts submitted to the journal. The form also serves as the copyright transfer form. It is readily available on the manuscript submission page http://edmgr.ovid.com/aenj/accounts/copyrightTransfer.pdf and can be completed and submitted electronically.

The ICMJE will continue to monitor feedback from the user community. The group plans to release revised versions of the form as needed. Please contact the editorial office with any suggestions or comments you may have concerning the content or implementation of this new conflict of interest disclosure form. The ICMJE hopes that standardization "will alleviate the confusion that prevails when multiple journals use different reporting formats and ease the reporting burden on the members of the biomedical research community so they can pursue the research that will improve the care that we can deliver to our patients" (Drazen et al., 2010).

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