Bentwich, Miriam Ethel http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5254-2579
Mashiach-Eizenberg, Michal
Borovečki, Ana
Simonstein, Frida
Article History
Received: 28 January 2019
Accepted: 11 November 2019
First Online: 27 November 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: Ethical approval for the surveys which the students were asked to fill voluntarily and anonymously was granted by the Ethics in Research (human beings) committee of the Faculty of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University (#172015) and by the Central Ethics Committee of the School of Medicine at University of Zagreb (#386–59–10106-16-20/267). The approval was granted for a non-written implied consent rather than a written/verbal consent in order to stress the anonymous nature of the questionnaires by refraining from documenting the consent on an individual level (whether orally/verbally). Specifically, the consent procedure that was approved by the aforementioned ethics committees utilized a combination of written information sheet and an oral explanation. The information sheet stated clearly the purpose of the study, its components/sections and the voluntary nature of the study as well as the names of the researchers. The relevant researcher (MEB at Bar-Ilan Faculty of Medicine and AB at the Medical School of the University of Zagreb), provided an oral explanation about the study to the first-year class at each of these institutes, while re-stressing the study’s voluntary nature. After providing the oral explanation, MEB and AB (each in their designated institutions), asked the students to pile-up the completed surveys on a designated table, and exited the classroom in order to ensure that the students would feel comfortable not to complete the survey, should they wish to not participate in the study. The piled-up completed surveys were collected later by the researchers.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.