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Article History

Received: 9 May 2025

Accepted: 15 May 2026

First Online: 2 June 2026

Declarations

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: An ethical statement for this study was not required since the criteria for such a statement were not fulfilled (for instance, examination of patients, risk for the respondents, lack of information about the goals of the study, use of invasive methods). This is in accordance with the German Research Foundation-guidelines (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) available at .The German Centre of Gerontology (DZA – “Deutsches Zentrum für Altersfragen”) organized the DEAS study and decided that an ethical statement was not necessary. Please note, that the DEAS study has a permanent advisory board. The permanent advisory board received detailed information about the sampling method, the consent to participate and the instruments used in the DEAS study prior to each wave of data collection. This permanent advisory board concluded that the DEAS study did not need approval from an ethics committee. This procedure is in concordance with local guidelines. Please also see the RatSWD (Principles and Review Procedures of Research Ethics in the Social and Economic Sciences): , page 28 (only available in German language). Prior to the interviews all participants provided inform consent to participate in the study. The study follows the Helsinki Declaration recommendations on ethical principles.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.