Uniform ICMJE Conflict of Interest Declaration Form: Report of Test Use in Croatian Medical Journal in 2009-2010.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), of which the Croatian Medical Journal (CMJ) is a member journal, published the revised uniform conflict of interest declaration form on July 1, 2010 (1). ICMJE journals used the test version of the form during the last year, after the publication of its initial statement on the new form for declaring conflict of interest (2). The form was made available for the public use since October 2009 (2). The main purpose of the uniform declaration statement was to simplify and standardize reporting on conflicts of interest in the biomedical research community but also to make important information accessible to the wider readership. The uniform declaration form of the ICMJE came in the middle of the debate in the United States (US) about the need for the transparency in the relationships between physicians and industry. The debate resulted in the Physician Payment Sunshine Act (3), which will come into effect in the US in 2013. This act would require yearly reporting of all physician payments over a cumulative value of US $100 and the statement would be available to the public. To provide the evidence for the revision of the declaration form and set the baseline data for future follow-up, we present our experience with the use of the new uniform conflict disclosure obtained from authors of manuscripts who were selected to fill out the ICMJE form (264 contrib-A conflict of interest was rarely reported – the total number of such declarations was 37 (14%), regardless of the type of conflict. A conflict of interest as money paid to the author was declared by 15 (5.5%) authors (Table 1). This money was declared as a grant, consulting fee, travel support, payment for writing/reviewing, or support in writing or chemicals/equipment. Money paid to the institution was declared by 22.3% of the authors (Table 1), mostly in the form of a grant, and less frequently as writing/reviewing activities, consulting fees, or travel support. In the section of support provided as writing, medicines or equipment, the authors listed computer equipment and provision of reagents in several cases. Other types of financial support were stated in 2 cases but no information in the comment section was provided. In one case, the text from the example form from the IC-MJE Web site (Sample ICMJE Uniform Disclosure Form for Potential Conflicts of Interest, available at http://www.ic-mje.org/sample_disclosure.pdf) was sent to …