Williams, Guido L. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8008-5750
de Beurs, Edwin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3832-8477
Spinhoven, Philip http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4117-335X
Flens, Gerard http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6683-4628
Paap, Muirne C. S. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1173-7070
Article History
Accepted: 12 May 2021
First Online: 12 June 2021
Declarations
:
: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
: This study is part of a larger study concerning the development of Computerized Adaptive Tests for measuring the level of functioning in psychiatric patients. The Medical Ethics Review Committee (MERC) of VU University Medical Center (VUmc) confirmed that the Medical Research Involving Humans Subjects Act (WMO) does not apply to this study, and an official approval by the MERC is not required. The MERC of VUmc is registered with the US Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) as IRB00002991. The FWA number assigned to the VUmc is FWA00017598. All patients received an information brochure upon their referral and registration for treatment, informing them that their personal (coded) data could be used for research, and that, if they did not consent to this, an opt-out procedure was available by filling-out the “objection to use anonymous data” form. This optional opt-out choice would be registered in their personal electronic health record. Data from patients with an opt-out registration are never released or used for data analysis. The privacy and information security officer of the DG also confirmed that we were allowed to use the data available for our study, because all data was encoded, i.e., could not be traced back to a person. The researchers had no direct access to the database itself, and only had the coded, raw data, at their disposal.