Addo, Juliet
Pearce, Dave
Metcalf, Marilyn
Lundquist, Courtney
Thomas, Gillian
Barros-Aguirre, David
Koh, Gavin C. K. W.
Strange, Mike
Funding for this research was provided by:
GlaxoSmithKline
Article History
Received: 19 December 2021
Accepted: 30 August 2022
First Online: 10 September 2022
Declarations
:
: The research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, and all national data protection laws. In compliance with European Union and UK legislation, General Data Protection Regulation guidelines were followed to ensure full patient data confidentiality [CitationRef removed]. Informed consent was obtained electronically from all individual participants included in the study or their parents/guardians if under the age of consent. Consent was also provided for anonymized consolidated publication of the findings. Participants’ rights and privacy were protected at all times throughout the study. Participants were granted the right to withdraw from the study at any time during the study conduct and to withhold information as they saw fit. All information/data that could identify respondents to third parties was kept strictly confidential; all respondents remained anonymous by using nicknames for the study.The study complied with international guidance on the conduct of market research, including the European Pharmaceutical Market Research Association (EphMRA) [CitationRef removed], the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR) [CitationRef removed], and the British Healthcare Business Intelligence Association (BHBIA) [CitationRef removed], and all other relevant national codes of conduct. Formal ethics approval was waived on the basis that only anonymised data were collected for market research purposes, without treatment intervention, the assessment of clinical endpoints, or the testing of any clinical hypothesis. Specifically, EphMRA defines market research as:UnorderedList removedMarket Research is defined by the objective(s) and the approach, not by the title of the work or those involved in it. Consequently, the EphMRA Code of Conduct includes areas such as digital listening (the use of social media content for Market Research), the use of observational/ethnographic approaches and work carried out online via mobile devices. Section 1.3 of the EphMRA code states that ‘Market Research (as defined above) relating to market or consumer behaviour of the sort that pharmaceutical companies routinely commission, whether involving healthcare professionals, patients, carers or members of the public does not require Clinical Research Ethics Committee or Independent Review Board approval (Institutional Review Board in the USA).’ [CitationRef removed]. Investigational tools and procedures were reviewed and approved by the GSK Medical Governance Boards in each participating country prior to recruitment to ensure that these were fully compliant with the above conditions and any additional national codes and legislation.
: Consent for publication is not applicable.
: The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. The following authors are employees of GSK (J.A., D.P., M.M., C.L., M.S., and D.B-A.) and hold stocks in GSK. G.C.K.W.K. is a former employee of GSK and holds stocks in the company. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers or organizations. G.T. is an employee of Adelphi Research which received funding from GSK Plc for the conduct of this study.