Funding for this research was provided by:
The Medical Faculty at Uppsala University (N/A)
U-CARE research program at Uppsala University (N/A)
Handelsbankens Research Foundation (N/A)
Article History
Received: 18 October 2018
Accepted: 28 June 2019
First Online: 18 July 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: No ethical approval was required as the requirements stated in the Swedish law on ethical approval (paragraphs 3 and 4) are not fulfilled. This was also validated by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Uppsala, Sweden (case number 2014/427), who reviewed a study that builds on the same data collection and deals with the same research funders. Consequently, the need for approval was waived. All the respondents gave their verbal consent to participate in the study when the invitation to participate in the study was followed up by telephone. During these telephone calls, AB proposed a time for an interview. It was explained that, if the respondent agreed to be interviewed, we considered this proof of explicit and valid verbal consent. Written consent was not requested, for two reasons. First, the respondents were in general extremely busy people, difficult to get hold of. Second, we did not wish to bother them with a written consent form when this is not, in fact, required by Swedish law. Some of the respondents said that they had only half an hour for the interview, and if we had asked them to read and fill out a written consent form this would have reduced the interview time. The respondents’ consent to participate was documented through recorded and transcribed interviews following their approval. The whole process of obtaining verbal consent was described in detail in the application submitted to the Regional Ethical Review Board in Uppsala (case number 2014/427).
: The respondents were informed that the data collected will be reported in a scientific paper and published in a scientific journal. The respondents were also informed that they could, at any time, withdraw from the study and take back their consent for publication.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.