Funding for this research was provided by:
Sanofi Aventis Deutschland GmbH (Not applicable)
Article History
Received: 2 February 2020
Accepted: 16 May 2020
First Online: 1 July 2020
Compliance with ethical standards
:
: Carolin Brinkmann, Holger Gothe and Christoph Ohlmeier have received research grants from Sanofi Aventis Germany GmbH. Niklas Schmedt and Jochen Walker declare that they have no conflict of interest.
: In accordance with the Good Practice in Secondary Data Analysis (GPS), “Guideline 1: Ethics” (English version available at ExternalRef removed) “secondary data analyses must be conducted in accordance with ethical principles and respect human dignity as well as human rights.” It is, however, not mandatory to consult with an ethics committee, “if all the data protection provisions on pseudo-anonymization of all personal data are fulfilled … and no link to primary data is intended” (Swart et al. CitationRef removed). Since the study at hand respects all these conditions, a vote of an ethics committee has not been requested.