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Article History

Received: 28 December 2025

Accepted: 16 March 2026

First Online: 13 April 2026

Declarations

:

: This cross-sectional study obtained formal ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Medical Affairs Directorate of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Tripoli University Hospital (Approval Reference Number: 31447). The name of the approving body provided here is the formal English translation of the official name appearing on the institutional Arabic stamp of the ethical approval certificate. The procedures and protocols used in this study relating to human subjects were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments. The requirement for informed consent was formally waived by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the Medical Affairs Directorate of the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes, Tripoli University Hospital (the official name of the approving body as it appears on the institutional stamp). The official approval letter for this research protocol (Ref: 31447) explicitly states: “There is no need for informed consent.” This waiver was granted on the basis that the study was observational, posed minimal risk to participants, and all data were gathered and analyzed anonymously using the secure electronic database to ensure patient confidentiality. The questionnaire used for data collection was developed specifically for this study. It was administered in the local language by trained data collectors, and an English language version has been provided as Supplementary File 1 and is cited accordingly in the Methods section of this manuscript.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.