Who Should Use the Recommendations?
These recommendations are intended primarily for use by authors who might submit their work for publication to ICMJE member journals. Many non-ICMJE journals voluntarily use these recommendations (see www.icmje.org/journals.html). The ICMJE encourages that use but has no authority to monitor or enforce it. In all cases, authors should use these recommendations along with individual journals’ instructions to authors. Authors should also consult guidelines for the reporting of specific study types (e.g., the CONSORT guidelines for the reporting of randomized trials); see http://equator-network.org.
Journals that follow these recommendations are encouraged to incorporate them into their instructions to authors and to make explicit in those instructions that they follow ICMJE recommendations. Journals that wish to be identified on the ICMJE website as following these recommendations should notify the ICMJE secretariat at Journal Listing Request Form. Journals that in the past have requested such identification but who no longer follow ICMJE recommendations should use the same means to request removal from this list.
The ICMJE encourages wide dissemination of these recommendations and reproduction of this document in its entirety for educational, not-for-profit purposes without regard for copyright, but all uses of the recommendations and document should direct readers to www.icmje.org for the official, most recent version, as the ICMJE updates the recommendations periodically when new issues arise.