Vermeiden, Margriet
Janssens, Mayke http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8957-2475
Thewissen, Viviane
Akinsola, Esther
Peeters, Sanne http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3004-4261
Reijnders, Jennifer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1693-5666
Jacobs, Nele http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4021-4014
van Os, Jim
Lataster, Johan http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3889-8154
Article History
Received: 30 November 2018
Accepted: 11 July 2019
First Online: 6 August 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: The initial study protocol was developed by researchers from Open University in The Netherlands, and was later adapted for use in Norway and Nigeria with permission of the participating institutions. As there is no judicial coverage of ethical review of non-medical research in The Netherlands, faculties of social sciences together developed the ‘code of ethics for research in the social and behavioural sciences’, which was accepted in January 2016 by the deans of social sciences in The Netherlands. From then on, approval of research protocols from an ethics review committee needs to be established prior to the start of a study. The current study was conducted before this date, which made it not obligatory to obtain approval of an IRB/ethics panel. For that reason, the research protocol was not reviewed by such a board, and Dutch ethics committees are prohibited from retroactively granting ethical approval. However, data were collected under responsibility of the researchers, who confirm that the study was carried out in accordance with The Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for medical research involving humans. It is further emphasized that the Dutch law on Medical Research in Humans (Wet Medisch-wetenschappelijk onderzoek met mensen [WMO]) was not applicable to the current study, because the research question was not medical, did not involve patients, and participants were not randomly assigned to an intervention.All participants were informed that participation was on a voluntary basis, and gave digital (in case of online survey; The Netherlands, Norway) or verbal informed consent (in case of paper and pencil survey; Nigeria) at study entry.
: Not applicable.
: The authors confirm that there are no conflicts of interest associated with this publication.