Schäfer, Wiebke http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8284-448X
Princk, Christina
Kollhorst, Bianca
Schink, Tania http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0224-1866
Article History
First Online: 4 June 2019
Compliance with Ethical Standards
:
: Wiebke Schäfer, Bianca Kollhorst, and Tania Schink are employees of the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology – BIPS. Unrelated to this study, BIPS occasionally conducts studies financed by the pharmaceutical industry. Almost exclusively, these are post-authorization safety studies (PASS) requested by health authorities. The studies and the resulting publications are not influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Christina Princk is currently an employee at the Governmental Institute of Public Health of Lower Saxony, Hanover, Germany, and has no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this study.
: In Germany, the utilization of health insurance data for scientific research is regulated by the Code of Social Law. All involved SHIs, the German Federal (Social) Insurance, and the Senator for Science, Health and Consumer Protection in Bremen as their responsible authorities approved the use of the data for this study. Informed consent for studies based on the GePaRD is not required by law, and, according to the Ethics Committee of the University of Bremen, these studies are exempt from Institutional Review Board review.
: No sources of funding were used to assist in the preparation of this study.