Article History
Received: 22 November 2019
Accepted: 19 May 2020
First Online: 27 May 2020
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: We analysed an existing data set collected in a survey by others. The survey was not anonymous but confidentiality was assured during the data input phase. Thus, respondents’ personal data that could be used to identify the respondent were not available in the data set when it was provided to us for analysis. In the Netherlands, no ethics approval is required for such secondary data analysis. The medical research ethics committee of the Amsterdam University Medical Centre, the Netherlands, reviewed the research proposal of the original study ‘Gezondheidsmonitor Volwassenen en Ouderen 2016’ [Health Monitor adults and older people 2016] and determined that the rules laid out in the Medical Research Involving Human Subjects Act did not apply (d.d. 1 June 2016, number W16_166 #16.196). Via a contract between the Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Community Health Service South Limburg, Jane Murray Cramm and Anna Petra Nieboer obtained permission to use the data collected by the Community Health Service South Limburg.
: Not applicable.
: Jane Murray Cramm is an associate editor of BMC Geriatrics. Otherwise the authors declare that they have no competing interests.