Ethics consideration

Participant information sheets containing detailed study procedures including the conduct of interviews and audio-recording of interviews, participants’ rights and responsibilities, potential risks and benefits, and patients’ confidentiality and usage of study data, were distributed and explained to every potential study participant in either English or Bahasa Malaysia. Written voluntary informed consent was obtained from all participants before the conduct of any data collection for this study. All participants were informed and aware that study participation was entirely voluntary, and that they may withdraw their participation at any time. They were also free to refuse to answer any questions during the interviews and may opt to terminate the interviews at any point. All participants agreed to be audio recorded and quoted anonymously in publications. No personal information or identifiers were collected, maintained, or analysed throughout the study, and participants were quoted anonymously in interview transcripts and publications. All study participants were compensated for their time and travel expenses (when applicable), with the honorarium amount reviewed and approved by the ethics committee.

This study was registered in the National Medical Research Register (NMRR-18-3399-45073). The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Medical Research and Ethics Committee (MREC), Ministry of Health, Malaysia.