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Article History

Received: 7 February 2022

Accepted: 6 June 2022

First Online: 16 June 2022

Declarations

:

: The study protocol was approved by the relevant medical, scientific, and ethics committees of Area Vasta of Romagna (Prot. N. 2741/2013/1.5/113) and has been conducted in accordance with good clinical practice and the principles of the Helsinki Declaration.

: Given the retrospective nature of the study, it was not possible to obtain the informed consensus from patients because most of them were not reachable (dead or in critical conditions). In research centers and universities in Italy, the use of patient data for research purposes can be authorized by the General patients Authorization 2018 [ ].

: Not applicable. Specific precautions were put in place to warranty the confidentiality of participants. In particular, the study data extracted from the EMRs were initially registered in a dedicated encrypted database with limited access to study nurses only. The completed database was permanently anonymized by deleting patients’ identity data and by assigning a unique numerical code to each study participant.

: The authors declare no competing interests.