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Article History

Received: 17 December 2024

Accepted: 25 March 2025

First Online: 4 June 2025

Declarations

:

: This study has been approved by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) (Project 2021/956). Where a country specific HREC exists (e.g., Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, and Malaysia), a site-specific protocol and supporting documents were submitted for local ethics approval, prior to initiating the research at the identified site. The local ethics committees are the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Respati Indonesia, the Committee on Bioethics at the Global Research Institute (GlORI) Foundation, Kyrgyzstan, and the SEGi Research Ethics Committee, SEGi University Malaysia. There was not a local ethics committee operating in Afghanistan at the time of this research [–]. Additionally, there are no social science ethics standards or policies established in Uzbekistan at the national and institutional level []. Importantly, the Republic of Uzbekistan Law on Science and Scientific Activity 2019 states, “persons carrying out scientific activities are required to: not to harm human life and health, the environment; not to allow plagiarism, misappropriation of other people’s scientific developments, not to rely on false information; comply with intellectual property rights and scientific ethics standards” [], all of which are considerations of the University of Sydney HREC approval. However, there are no guidelines with regards to seeking local ethics approval in Uzbekistan. In relation to the latter, in instances where the country did not have a governing ethics body (e.g., Afghanistan and Uzbekistan), a site-specific protocol and supporting documents were approved by the University of Sydney HREC. For each site, the Site Principal Investigator assisted in identifying and providing advice on the appropriate country specific HREC as well as with the preparation and submission of an ethics application as required. In accordance with ethics approval, PISs were available for and specific to each site. All participants provided informed consent prior to participating in the research.

: Not applicable.

: Professor Ian Hickie is the Co-Director, Health and Policy at the Brain and Mind Centre (BMC) University of Sydney. The BMC operates an early-intervention youth service at Camperdown under contract to headspace. He is the Chief Scientific Advisor to, and a 3.2% equity shareholder in, InnoWell Pty Ltd which aims to transform mental health services through the use of innovative technologies. Victoria Loblay is a board member for Matana Foundation, a philanthropic organization that provides funding to programs for disadvantaged young people in Australia. She does not receive any financial benefit for this role.The other authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.