Document is current

Article History

Received: 1 September 2024

Accepted: 10 April 2025

First Online: 22 April 2025

Declarations

:

: Ethical approval and permission were obtained from the DHS programmer through the website by sending an online free request. The original DHS data were gathered by maintaining the international and ethical guidelines after receiving approved ethical clearance from the ICF Macro Institute Review Board, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) from each country in conformity with the United States Department of Health and Human Services requirements for human participant protection. Besides, during the data collection procedure, all the study subjects and /or/ their legal guardians of minors (age less than 16) gave written informed consent to participate. All the methods were conducted based on the Helsinki declaration. Information obtained from the DHS dataset was not disclosed to any third party. This study is not an experimental study. A further description of how the DHS uses data and its ethical clearance can be found at: .

: It is not applicable for this study since the present study used a secondary data analysis done by the Central Statistical Agency of the countries.

: The authors declare no competing interests.