Q: Can we analyze data for a purpose other than that specified in the original plan of the research manuscript?

Detailed Question -

We performed a clinical trial for patients. We intervened upon obtaining consent from the subject patients, and we recorded them with video and evaluated it. We already made a paper with this result, but we want to make further analysis with this video for a purpose other than that specified in the original plan. If we do that, would it be ethically problematic or regarded as a duplicate publication? The purpose and how to evaluate and the analysis is different from the original plan, and the original consent obtained was not supposed to include this new plan.

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

Thank you for your question. We understand that you wish to use an existing data set that is already published to conduct a new set of analysis. This will not be considered as salami slicing as it is ethical to use the same data set to study a different hypothesis and draw a different set of conclusions. However, if these videos are already published along with your original manuscript and you wish to submit them again to a new journal for this new paper, you will be required to obtain permission from the journal to reuse the video for your new publication.

We recommend you read the following resources about salami slicing:

Hope this helps. All the best for your study! 

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