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Article History

Received: 16 October 2023

Accepted: 6 March 2024

First Online: 25 April 2024

Declarations

:

: This study obtained ethical approval (Reg. No. 656/2019) from the Ethical Review Board of Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC) and the Research Ethics Review Committee of the World Health Organization. All the information collected during data collection was recorded in password-protected computer, with access granted only to the core research team. As per HERD International’s data management policy, in alignment with NHRC’s data management guideline, the data collected for this research will be disposed after 5 years. In this study, we didn’t collect the data/information from the participants. However, institutional consent was obtained from the supervisor of the DOTS center, who is also the data custodian, to collect retrospective data. During the data collection, the name and identity of the TB patients was anonymized, and the collected information was used solely for research purpose. Data was collected from the TB registers into an Excel template by our researchers under the direct observation of the data custodian of the respective DOTS center. To ensure anonymity, the data custodian completely covered the section of the register with the patients’ name and address with an opaque sheet of chart paper. As each patient’s entry was given unique identification number, we do not have any personal information of TB patient to identify them. This process of collecting anonymized data, with the help of the data custodian, ensured the maintenance of patient information anonymity and confidentiality.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

: The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article and they do not necessarily represent the views, decisions or policies of the institutions with which they are affiliated.