Okada, Michiyo
Nakadoi, Yoshihiro
Fujikawa, Ai
Article History
Received: 12 October 2021
Accepted: 28 March 2022
First Online: 20 April 2022
Competing interests
: The authors declare no competing interests.
: All procedures were carried out in accordance with the standards of the institutional ethics committee, the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of our institution (FY 2018, approval number: 2).
: Although we obtained consent from the students’ respective principals, each student was required to provide his/her own consent before participation. Written informed consent—such as, providing one’s name for indicating consent—was not sought from the participants and parents or guardians. While the questionnaire had no field for students to write their names, all the questionnaires distributed to students included the options “I agree” and “I do not agree” to choose from at the top. Therefore, students who chose “I do not agree” did not complete the questionnaire. We only received answers from students who chose “I agree.” For participants under the age of 16 years, each class teacher explained the questionnaires to their parents or guardians, and verbal consent was obtained from them. These participants were asked to choose their own answers to questions at the top of the questionnaire, i.e., whether they would or would not answer the questions in this questionnaire, including the intention of their parents or guardians.