Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the following standard statement should be added: ‘No conflict of interest was disclosed’.

Conflict of interest may be of a non-financial or financial nature. Examples of conflict of interest include (but are not limited to):

• individuals receiving funding, salary, or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
• individuals, or their funding organization, or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
• official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication; and
• political, religious, or ideological competing interests.