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Article History

Received: 30 September 2022

Revised: 12 April 2023

Accepted: 24 April 2023

First Online: 30 May 2023

Conflict of interest

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: We made secondary use of a research database of medical claims records that is safeguarded and maintained by the Federal Ministry of Health and where it has been ensured that no individual is identifiable. This is a consolidated research database that is only accessible for selected partners under a strict data protection policy. Use of the data takes place in agreement and cooperation with the data owner. The data contains no names of individual patients or health care provider. All unique identifiers, such as the social security number, have been removed along with postal codes and the date of birth for the patients. Only district information and year of birth is available. All team members working with the data have signed a confidentiality agreement and declaration of commitment ensuring that research will be undertaken in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations. Consequently, the study is not eligible for an ethics vote of the relevant national committees on human experimentation. The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.