Conflict of Interest Disclosure Statement

Dec 2, 2025

Changes ↕

2 Dec 2025: Revised to use “coi-statement” in @sec-type, @fn-type, and @content-type

Introduction

Also known as a conflict of interest statement, a disclosure statement is the authors’ opportunity to provide transparency about any associations that they have (such as financial, professional, legal, etc.) which might have influenced their research or judgement, even if no actual influence occurred, or confirm that no such competing interests exist. Many journals require authors to submit a disclosure statement with their article, and this disclosure statement is often published within the article text.

The Interact template guide specifies that the conflict of interest disclosure statement for an article, if provided, should be placed as section in the back of an article. This special section usually has a title like “Disclosure Statement”. In articles that do not use the Interact template, or in older content, the disclosure statement might be located in a footnote, or in a paragraph in the front or back of an article (such as within acknowledgements).

In all cases, the disclosure statement should be tagged using a type attribute with value coi-statement.

The type attribute value COI-statement is also permitted for backward compatibility, although coi-statement is preferred.

Examples

Disclosure statement as a section

If the disclosure statement appears as a section, the statement should be tagged using sec-type="coi-statement" and the <sec> element should be located directly within <back>.

<sec sec-type="coi-statement"> 
<title>Disclosure statement</title> 
<p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.</p> 
</sec>

This is the preferred tagging for new content using the Interact template. The examples below show variations that may be used in cases where they apply.

Disclosure statement as a footnote

If a disclosure statement appears as a footnote, the statement should be tagged using fn-type="coi-statement" and the <fn> element should be located within <front> or <back>.

<fn fn-type="coi-statement">
<p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.</p> 
</fn>

Disclosure statement as a paragraph

If a disclosure statement appears as a paragraph within another section (such as acknowledgements), the statement should be tagged using content-type="coi-statement" on the <p> element.

<p content-type="coi-statement">No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.</p>

Disclosure statement as part of a paragraph

If a disclosure statement appears in a paragraph with other content, the statement should be tagged using content-type="coi-statement" on a <named-content> element.

<p>All authors contributed equally to this work. <named-content content-type="coi-statement">No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.</named-content></p>