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Article History

Received: 30 August 2018

Accepted: 7 August 2019

First Online: 28 August 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: This paper derives from two broader research programs. The first program held from 2007 to 2009 was registered at the Mali National Centre of Scientific and Technological Research (<i>Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique</i> - CNRST) in Bamako with the number 007/CNRST/07. It did not require any ethics approval according to the CNRST. The second program was held from 2010 to 2012 and was registered at the CNRST with the number 036/2010/MESRS/CNRST. It was approved on March 30, 2010 by the Ethics Committee of the National institute for public health research <i>(Institut National de Recherche en Santé Publique</i> - INRSP) of Mali, whose chairperson was Dr. Boulkassoum Haïdara. In both cases, the ethics principles were followed throughout data collection and analysis. Informed consent to participate was always asked to our interviewees. Prior to beginning the interview, the scope of our research and its scientific outputs were clearly stated to the interviewees; we also assured them all ethical safeguards, and notably the anonymity of the research findings. As approved by the ethics committee, consent was written for patients and it was verbal for health professionals and representatives of public authorities, donors and civil society. Data was anonymised during the analysis and presentation of our findings. Finally, this paper is part of JM work on her PhD thesis about patients’ participation at policy level; in this framework, the research project, data collection and analysis were monitored annually by a follow-up committee.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.