Skhvitaridze, Natia http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0312-4151
Gamkrelidze, Amiran
Manjavidze, Tinatin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1340-6256
Brenn, Tormod http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3717-8323
Rylander, Charlotta http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5056-9452
Funding for this research was provided by:
UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Article History
Received: 13 April 2023
Accepted: 7 February 2024
First Online: 22 February 2024
Declarations
:
: The Institutional Review Board of National Center for Disease Control and Public Health approved the legal aspects of the study (IRB #2023-001). In addition, Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics in Northern Norway approved the protocol (Ref: 577179, 20/02/2023). All data included in this paper were extracted from the national population registries and anonymized before the researchers received the dataset; registration in the national registries is mandatory by law; citizens cannot refuse to be registered. Consent was not obtained from study subjects, as was deemed unnecessary according to national regulation (according the Order of Minister of Georgia N01-26/ნ “About the rules of production and delivery of medical statistics”, ExternalRef removed). Therefore, informed consent was not collected. This article is in line with the Declaration of Helsinki and the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.