Thiagesan, Rajeswaran
Soundari, Hilaria
Gopichandran, Vijayaprasad
Article History
Received: 18 January 2022
Accepted: 24 June 2022
First Online: 5 July 2022
Declarations
:
: This study was approved after a full board review by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Employees State Insurance Corporation Medical College and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, KK Nagar, Chennai 600078 with the number IEC/2021/1/21. The study was carried out as per the National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research involving Human Participants proposed by the Indian Council of Medical Research in 2017. Verbal informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the interviews. The study was conducted during the second wave of the COVID 19 pandemic in India and hence many interviews were conducted through mobile phone or video calls. The process of verbal informed consent was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of the Employees State Insurance Corporation Medical College and Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, KK Nagar, Chennai 600078, as it was felt that an audio-recorded verbal informed consent would be feasible and sufficient during a telephonic interview. The privacy of the interviews was ensured. The confidentiality of the participants was protected.
: Not Applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.