Table 1 ICMJE authorship criteria explained from a patient engagement and patient-oriented research perspective. These examples are not inclusive and are meant to be demonstrative
From: Guidance on authorship with and acknowledgement of patient partners in patient-oriented research
Criterion | Application to Patient Engagement and Patient-Oriented Research |
|---|---|
1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work. | This might be the case if a patient partner is involved in the project from its start as a research idea, contributed to its design and execution plan, and contributes throughout the project. There are ways for patient partners to make substantial contributions even when they are not involved in all aspects of the research process from the outset. Patient partners may still contribute substantially to a project’s overall execution, including, but not limited to, development or selection of methods, recruitment, interpreting results, sharing results, etc. Patient partners may make substantial contributions without being trained in the scientific methodology, data analysis or interpretation. They may make these contributions through their conversations with team members about how they view the results or why they feel the results are important to patients, etc. |
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content. | Patient partners may physically contribute to writing or revising the work, or may otherwise provide intellectual content through critical and constructive comments or commentary in writing or in conversation on manuscript drafts. Drafting some of the manuscript is not necessary for making an intellectual contribution to the content. |
3. Final approval of the version to be published. | Patient partners, as part of the authorship team, need to have reviewed and approved the manuscript for submission to be published. |
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. | Patient partners do not need to be experts in the work that was carried out (for example, statistical methods), but they do need to be accountable to the work that they did to contribute to the project as presented in the manuscript. |