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Article History

Received: 3 April 2025

Accepted: 24 November 2025

First Online: 14 January 2026

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study received retrospective ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of Matej Bel University (ID number: 314/2025; approved in April 2025). At the time when the original research was conducted, and still today, there has been no national legal requirement in Slovakia for ethical approval of anonymous, voluntary, and non-sensitive surveys in the social sciences that do not involve medical or psychological interventions. According to Act No. 576/2004 Coll. on Health Care, ethical approval is required only for clinical trials and biomedical research on humans. Nevertheless, the study adhered to the ethical standards outlined in the Ethical Code of Matej Bel University (revised in 2023) and complied with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki (2013 revision) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Retrospective ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Matej Bel University (ID number: 314/2025; approved in April 2025).

: All participants provided informed consent prior to taking part in the study. Participation was entirely voluntary, anonymous, and could be withdrawn at any time without any consequences. The informed consent statement was included as part of the questionnaire completed by respondents. Informed consent was obtained from the respondents at the time of completing the questionnaire, between March and April 2024. By submitting the questionnaire, participants confirmed their consent to participate in the study and to the processing of their data for scientific and academic research purposes only. Respondents were informed about the purpose of the research, the expected duration of participation, and the intended use of the data. No personal or identifying information was collected, and all responses were treated confidentially in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable national data protection legislation. As the research involved a non-interventional, non-sensitive organizational survey with adult participants, no additional consent from legal guardians or proxies was required.