Questionable Ethical Approval Number in Three Articles
Three articles [1-3] share the same ethical approval number (2021LL0501), which was stated in these articles "The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Jingzhou Mental Health Center (Approval No.: 2021LL0501)"; however, different participant groups were described in these articles. Please find the table for details.
The article [1] and [3] share a common author Bo Liu, and the article [2] and [3] share a common author Xinfeng Zhang. The article [1] and [2] share no common author.
These findings suggest that the author reused the approval number without actually obtaining approval for the studies.
Reference
[1] 10.1371/journal.pone.0345506