Ramos, Silvina http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2787-2138
Romero, Mariana
Perrotta, Carla
Sguassero, Yanina
Straw, Cecilia
Gialdini, Celina
Righetti, Natalia
Betran, Ana P.
Funding for this research was provided by:
World Health Organization (A65919)
Article History
Received: 14 October 2020
Accepted: 18 January 2021
First Online: 26 January 2021
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: The project “Optimizing the use of cesarean section in Argentina: design and methodology of a formative research for the development of interventions” was approved by the Independent Ethics Committee of Centro Rosarino de Estudios Perinatales (record number 2/18, January 2018) and by the provincial Ethics Committees and/or the Teaching and Research Committees at each of the selected hospitals pursuant to the requirements in each jurisdiction. It was also approved by two Ethics Committees of WHO, the Research Project Review Panel of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) at the Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research of WHO, and the WHO Research Ethics Review Committee, Geneva, Switzerland. In Argentina, the research protocol was registered in the RENIS database (number IS002316).For the health professionals’ online survey, informed consent will be obtained via online immediately prior to the online survey, which will be allocated in Survey Monkey, a platform that offers several tools to strengthen the confidentiality and anonymity of the data. Participants will be given the opportunity to read the consent, and by clicking “I agree” at the bottom of the informed consent, they indicate that they are at least 18 years old, have read and understood this consent form and agree to participate in the study. They are also required to print a copy of the consent for their own records.For the hospital key informants’ in-person interview and for the women’s in-person survey, informed consent will be obtained in person by the professional in charge of carrying out the interview/survey prior to the interview/survey. Participants will be given the opportunity to read along as this person reads the consent form out loud and to have any questions they may have answered. Once all questions are answered to the participant’s satisfaction, they will be asked if they wish to participate, and the consent form will be signed. A signed and dated copy of the consent will be kept by the interviewer and then transferred to the principal investigation. This copy will remain at CEDES and will be safely archived by the principal investigator in a closed locker so that the forms can be retrieved at any time for monitoring, auditing and inspection purposes. Another copy of the signed and dated consent form will also be provided to the participant for them to keep.All three consent forms mentioned above state that the participant would receive no remuneration for their participation. They all also state that the participation in the study is completely voluntary, so participants are free not to answer any question or to withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. Moreover, they provide the contact details of two members of the research team in case the participants would like assistance and/or have questions about this project or a research-related problem.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.