Ziegler, Sarah http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9907-5787
Raineri, Alessia
Nittas, Vasileios
Rangelov, Natalie
Vollrath, Fabian
Britt, Chantal
Puhan, Milo A.
Funding for this research was provided by:
The Participatory Science Academy of the University of Zurich, funded by the Mercator Switzerland foundation (Instead of an award number, we received a file number: PWA 05/2021)
University of Zurich
Article History
Accepted: 17 March 2022
First Online: 28 April 2022
Declarations
:
: The Participatory Science Academy of the University of Zurich, funded by the Mercator Switzerland Foundation, supported parts of the salary of SZ as a postdoctoral researcher. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. All authors had full access to all of the data (reports and tables) and take responsibility for their integrity and accuracy.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
: The study did not fall under the Human Research Act in Switzerland because no health-related personal data were collected and analyzed to study diseases or the structure and function of the human body. Thus, a full ethics approval was not required and the Ethics Committee of the Canton of Zurich issued a waiver (Req-2021-01415).
: The study did not fall under the Human Research Act in Switzerland because no health-related personal data were collected and analyzed to study diseases or the structure and function of the 561 human body. Thus, a written informed consent was not required for the survey participants. The citizen scientists have collaborated and co-created the study itself and both, the Citizen Science Board and the Working Group required the voluntary participation of the citizen scientists. We therefore always provided sufficient and appropriate information about the project at an early stage so that Citizen Scientists could make a meaningful decision about whether or not they were willing and able to participate in the continuing process. Participation could be terminated at any time.
: In the 3rd meeting, the publication plan was discussed with the citizens scientists. Subsequently, the members were informed by e-mail about all steps of the publication.
: All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information file).
: For the purpose of our study we did not use any statistical code.
: CB and MAP initiated the project and the preliminary design. AR, CB, MAP, SZ and VN further developed the design and methods. CB, FV, NR and SZ recruited citizen scientists and online survey participants. AR, CB, FV, MAP, NR, SZ and VN conducted three citizen science meetings, supervised breakout group discussions and collected data generated during the meetings. SZ managed the communication with the citizen scientists, designed and analysed an online evaluation for the first Citizen Science Board meeting, designed the online survey for evaluating the identified research questions, and collected, managed and analysed the data. SZ wrote the first draft of the manuscript. MAP, NR and VN contributed to the editing of the manuscript, and all authors approved the final manuscript. MAP is the guarantor and accepts full responsibility for the work and the conduct of the study, had access to the data and controlled the decision to publish. SZ confirms that the article is an honest, accurate and transparent account of the study being reported; that no important aspects of the study have been omitted; and that any discrepancies from the study as originally planned (and, if relevant, registered) have been explained. We thank the members of the Long COVID Citizen Science Board and the Long COVID Working Group for their valuable contribution to this study.