Owusu, Adobea Yaa http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2223-7896
Funding for this research was provided by:
International Development Research Centre
Article History
Received: 4 July 2020
Accepted: 21 February 2022
First Online: 18 March 2022
Declarations
:
: Ethics approval were sought from the following: 1) Ethical Review Board of the Memorial University at St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, 2) the Ethics Committee for Humanities at the University of Ghana, Legon (ECH 017/14–15), and 3) the Ghana Health Service’s Ethical Review Board (GHS-ERC: 02/11/14). The Protocol Submission form which was filled to seek ethical permission from the Ghana-based ethical committees included five options for types of consent to be sought from the respondents, under the section on “consent process”, with instructions to “circle all that applies.” We chose all of "written”, “oral”, “English language”, and "local language” options. These were approved by the ethics committees, as part of the general approval we received. The need to approve non-written consent as well as the use of the local languages is informed by the fact that not everyone in the study’s catchment area, which is applicable to the rest of Ghana, can read and write. Respondents who consented to participate in the study by writing had to append their signature or initials to a written form provided by the Ethical Committee for Humanities at the University of Ghana. Field enumerators recorded verbal consent on the said form for respondents who could not read and write. Permission to conduct the study were also received from 1) the Ghana Health Service’s Eastern Regional Directorate, 2) The LMKM Directorate of the Ghana Health Service, and 3) the Administrators of the Atua Government, and St. Martins De Pores hospitals. Each participant gave a written or verbal informed consent to participate before they were interviewed.
: Not applicable.
: The author declares that there are no competing interests.