All individuals listed as an author should meet the authorship criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). The ICMJE recommends that authorship is based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work.
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
3. Final approval of the version 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.

In addition to being accountable for the parts of the work they have done, authors should also be able to identify which co-authors are responsible for specific other parts of the work to ensure that the contributions of all authors are accurately and appropriately acknowledged. Authors may use CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) to provide information about individual contributions at the time of submission. It is expected that all authors agreed upon their individual contributions as shared by the corresponding author. The authors’ contribution statement will be published with the final article and should accurately reflect contributions to the work.

Furthermore, authors should have confidence in the integrity of the contributions of their co-authors. This means that they should trust that their co-authors have conducted the research in an ethical and responsible manner, and that the data and results presented in the manuscript are accurate and reliable.

Individuals who do not meet all four of the authorship criteria should not be included as authors on the manuscript. However, they can still be acknowledged on the title page of the manuscript for their contributions to the research in order to recognize the contributions of these individuals and to provide transparency about who was involved in the research.

If the editorial board suspects a case of ghost, honorary or gift authorship, the submission will be suspended and the relevant COPE flowchart and COPE Policy on authorship and contributorship will be followed.