Rose-Clarke, Kelly http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8959-9184
Pradhan, Hemanta
Rath, Suchitra
Rath, Shibanand
Samal, Subhashree
Gagrai, Sumitra
Nair, Nirmala
Tripathy, Prasanta
Prost, Audrey
Funding for this research was provided by:
Children's Investment Fund Foundation (169924)
Article History
Received: 17 December 2018
Accepted: 27 May 2019
First Online: 31 May 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of University College London (reference number 2656/002) and an independent ethics board in India convened by Ekjut, a civil society organisation in Ranchi, Jharkhand (reference IEC/EKJUT/). All adolescent girls provided informed consent (a witnessed thumbprint). For girls younger than 18 years, we also sought verbal consent from their parent or guardian. Verbal consent was deemed by the research team to be an acceptable and valid approach in this context. Indian colleagues leading the data collection advised us to seek consent from the husband for married girls under 18 in order not to cause conflict at home. In this context, ‘guardian’ was interpreted as meaning husband. The local ethics board discussed and approved all consent procedures in this study.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.