Funding for this research was provided by:
Estonian Research Council (PUT-299, IUT34-17)
Article History
Received: 17 May 2019
Accepted: 4 November 2019
First Online: 25 November 2019
Ethics approval and consent to participate
: The surveys in 2002 and 2014 among physicians were approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tartu (decisions no. 87/1 and 235/T-12, respectively). The surveys among general population (Health Behaviour among Adult Population in Estonia) in 2002 and 2014 were approved by the Tallinn Medical Research Committee.The questionnaires in both surveys were accompanied by a separate survey information sheet. It provided detailed description of the survey methodology including its ethical aspects (autonomy, data handling etc). Survey participation was therefore considered as informed consent. This is quite common practice for large-scale population surveys as separate consent forms would affect both the response rates (additional response burden) and survey costs (i.e. postal fees), and was approved by local ethics commitee for both surveys.
: Not applicable.
: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.