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Article History

Received: 16 November 2025

Accepted: 20 March 2026

First Online: 12 April 2026

Declarations

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: This research was conducted as part of a doctoral dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD in Nursing at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the National Guide to Ethics in Medical Research (Ethics Code: IR.MUMS.NURSE.REC0.1403.008). Before participation, all participants were fully informed about the study objectives, data collection and recording procedures, confidentiality measures, and their rights (including the right to withdraw at any stage). After this explanation, written informed consent was obtained from all participants for both participation in the study and the publication of anonymized interview excerpts. Ethical considerations were applied to all forms of data collection, including in-person, virtual, and digital interactions. For virtual and digital data, online informed consent was obtained before any digital interaction, and data were collected and used in accordance with participants’ reasonable expectations and relevant ethical guidelines. All digital materials were anonymized before analysis, excerpts were selected solely based on analytic relevance, and no personally identifiable information or private/closed online spaces were accessed. All data were securely stored in encrypted, password-protected files, access was restricted to the research team only, and data use was limited exclusively to the purposes of this study.

: The authors declare no competing interests.