Document is current

Article History

Received: 26 March 2026

Accepted: 16 July 2026

First Online: 22 July 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. It was based on an anonymous, voluntary survey of physicians and did not involve patients, human biological material, or clinical interventions. Only aggregated, non-identifiable data were analyzed and reported. Under Italian and European legislation [Regulation (EU) No. 536/2014; D.Lgs. 52/2019], the study falls outside the scope of clinical research requiring ethics committee approval. The competent territorial ethics committee (Comitato Etico Territoriale – Liguria, CET Liguria) and the university research ethics committee (Comitato Etico per la Ricerca di Ateneo – CERA, Università degli Studi di Genova; Art. 2, Regolamento D.R. 869/2022) were not required to review this study, as anonymous surveys of professionals with no identifiable data are outside their respective mandates. Informed consent was implied by voluntary completion of the questionnaire.

Consent for publication: Not applicable.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.