Grimmsmann, Thomas http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0886-6162
Himmel, Wolfgang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3523-5486
Funding for this research was provided by:
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Article History
Received: 13 February 2020
Accepted: 26 June 2020
First Online: 17 August 2020
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: The paper is not under consideration by another journal, and none of the results presented here have been published previously. Both authors fulfil the criteria for authorship and give their consent for publication. There was no conflict of interest.
: Ethical approval was not necessary due to the nature of the data (secondary data analysis of anonymized data). The German law allows the use of anonymous electronic medical records for research purposes under certain conditions. According to this legislation, it is not necessary to obtain informed consent from patients or approval from a medical ethics committee for observational studies that contains no directly identifiable data. Therefore, the study is exempt from formal ethical approval and no waiver of ethical approval from an Institutional Review Board or ethics committee is required.