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A competing interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients' welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain or personal rivalry). It may arise for the authors of a BMJ article when they have a financial interest that may influence, probably without their knowing, their interpretation of their results or those of others.
We believe that, to make the best decision on how to deal with a paper, we should know about any such competing interest that authors may have. We are not aiming to eradicate competing interests; they are almost inevitable. We will not reject papers simply because you have a competing interest, but we will make a declaration on whether or not you have competing interests.
We used to ask authors about any competing interests, but we have decided to restrict our request to financial interests. This is largely a tactical move. We hope that it will increase the number of authors who disclose competing interests. Our experience, supported by some research data, was that authors often did not disclose them.
For all manuscripts please provide either a statement describing the interests of all authors or a declaration "All authors declare that the answer to the questions on your competing interest form - http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/authors/checklists-forms/competing-interests - are all No and therefore have nothing to declare")
We also ask reviewers to provide statements of competing interests, and we use these when assessing the value of peer review reports.
