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Authors
Berete, Finaba
Demarest, Stefaan
Charafeddine, Rana
De Ridder, Karin
Vanoverloop, Johan
Van Oyen, Herman
Bruyère, Olivier
Van der Heyden, Johan
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Article History
Received: 14 December 2021
Accepted: 27 September 2022
First Online: 20 October 2022
Declarations
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: This study was carried out through an individual linkage between the BHIS 2013 data and the BCHI data. The BHIS 2013 was carried out in line with the Belgian privacy legislation. The BHIS 2013 has been approved by the ethics committee of the University hospital of Ghent on October 1st, 2012 (advice EC UZG 2012/658). The participation to the BHIS is voluntary. There was no formal written and signed consent foreseen. Participation was equivalent to giving consent. This is in compliance with the Good epidemiological practice – IEA (International Epidemiological Association) Guidelines for proper conduct of epidemiological research: “Formal written consent is unnecessary if the research is carried out in settings that pose no threat to the potential participants, when it is stated that taking part is voluntary and it is obvious that no benefits are at risk of being lost if potential participants refuse to take part.” ExternalRef removed. Such situations often arise in studies based on self-administered questionnaires or telephone interviews where providing the data involves giving de facto consent, such as BHIS. This consent approach was approved by the aforementioned ethics committee of the University hospital of Ghent. The selected households where notified about the survey, its practical organization, the institution in charge, the commissioners of the survey and its content via a letter and an information leaflet personally addressed to them. It was also clearly stipulated in the letter and the leaflet that participation is voluntary. All data were fully anonymized before their access. Data linkage was authorized by the Information Security Committee (local reference: Deliberation No. 17/119 of December 19, 2017, amended on September 3, 2019). All methods were performed in accordance with the Declarations of Helsinki.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
