Jucu, Ioan Sebastian https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6509-0161
Article History
Received: 25 August 2024
Accepted: 7 July 2025
First Online: 24 July 2025
Competing interests
: The author declares no competing interests.
: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Scientific Council of University Research and Creation of the West University of Timisoara, Romania (Ethical Approval No. 40234/19.06.2025). It certifies the fulfillment of the norms of observance of the principles and procedures regarding good conduct in scientific research, technological development, and innovation.
: All participants consented to participate in this study. The author of this article confirm that all research was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines/regulations. All participants have been fully informed that their anonymity and confidentiality are assured, why the research is being conducted, how their data will be utilized, and that there is no risk to them of participating. At the beginning of each questionnaire, participants gave their full written consent to participate in the study. At the beginning of each interview and focus group, participants gave their full oral consent to participate in the study. This was considered sufficient by both participants and the author, as the author did not store any personal information about the participants (such as names, addresses, telephone numbers, or email addresses). An informed consent statement was obtained in our non-interventional research for conducting surveys through questionnaires and in-person individual and focus group interviews. All participants were fully informed about the purpose of the study, why they were being asked to participate, what participation involves for the participants, the fact that the participation is voluntary, and about the participants’ personal privacy. In this regard, following the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Parliament and of the European Union Council of 27 April 2016, the participants were informed about their rights to access the personal data that is being processed, to request that their personal data to be deleted, to request that incorrect personal data about them to be rectified, to receive a copy of their personal data (data portability), and to send a compliant to the Romanian Data Protection Authority regarding the processing of their personal data. The informed consent for the survey, focus groups, and interviews was signed by the participants in the period from 20 February 2020 to 20 March 2024. The entire research was ethically approved by the Scientific Council of University Research and Creation of the West University of Timisoara and certifies the fulfillment of the norms of observance of the principles and procedures regarding good conduct in scientific research. The ethical approval is necessary and sufficient because at our university, the regulations on research ethics do not require that the application for ethical approval be submitted prior to data collection. Instead, the research must be ethical in its entirety (including survey/interview/focus group design, data collection, data analysis, interpretation, and manuscript). Therefore, the Scientific Council of West University of Timisoara, Romania, is responsible for ensuring that the paper’s ethics are maintained from the initial stage of field study through to the final written draft of the article. I can confirm that I have fully complied with the ethics principle that is in place at our university. This is specified in our University’s Ethics Guidelines, available online at this link: , in Romanian. This guide accordance with the Romanian Higher Education Law, which can be found here: . As such, I have also fully complied with the ethics of the Romanian Higher Education Law.
: This empirical research has not used any AI tool that may affect its outcomes.