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Article History

Received: 4 December 2023

Accepted: 24 April 2025

First Online: 30 May 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: All research was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines/regulations applicable when human participants are involved (Declaration of Helsinki). Approvals from the ethics committees of the different regions involved are attached. They were specifically asked to cover both tasks (focus groups and the survey): Research ethics committee of the University of Tartu (359/T4; 03/03/22 and 351M/11; 18/10/21); Comillas University Ethices Committee (2021/38; 05/04/21); Ellinogermaniki Agogi 9/6/21; Bratislava Police Institute (15/10/21).

: All participants and/or their families (depending on the participants’ age and the national law) signed an informed consent form prior to the scheduled activity. In the consents we included the objective of the study, the voluntary participation, the access and confidentiality to the data, the rights over the data and the contact information. As the participants were minors, the language was adapted to their understanding and the information contained in the consent form was reviewed with them before the activity was carried out. The purpose of the project and the voluntary nature of participation were clearly explained to them in advance. In both the focus groups and the survey, researchers provided a thorough explanation of the project before the activity began. For the survey, young participants were informed about the voluntary and confidential nature of their involvement. They were required to provide their consent both in writing and electronically (in April 2022 in Estonia and in January 2022 in Spain), at the beginning and again at the end of the survey. Similarly, at the start of the focus groups (September 2021 in Spain, October 2021 in Portugal, Estonia and Slovakia, and November 2021 in Greece) participants were asked to provide their assent in addition to the prior written consent. It was emphasized that participation was voluntary and that they had the right to skip questions or withdraw from the process at any time.