During an internal investigation carried out following publication of [1], PLOS requested documentation in support of the statement in the Methodology section of [1] that ethical clearance for this work was obtained from the Ethical Review Board of Adigrat University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences. The documents provided to PLOS in follow-up discussions did not resolve the pending questions about ethics approval and instead raised additional concerns.
PLOS has been unable to discuss this matter with a representative of Adigrat University; however, it is understood that substantial communication issues have been affecting the region for an extended period.
As we have been unable to clarify whether this work received ethics approval, and in light of concerns identified in our assessment of the provided ethics documents, the PLOS ONE Editors retract this article.
TGG, LG, and HNT did not agree with retraction. TGG and LG stand by the article’s findings. DT, MGH, TG, and ZGA could not be reached.
Reference
- 1. Tukue D, Gebremeskel TG, Gebremariam L, Aregawi B, Hagos MG, Gebremichael T, et al. (2020) Prevalence and determinants of modern contraceptive utilization among women in the reproductive age group in Edaga-hamus Town, Eastern zone, Tigray region, Ethiopia, June 2017. PLoS ONE 15(3): e0227795. pmid:32142517
Citation: The PLOS ONE Editors (2022) Retraction: Prevalence and determinants of modern contraceptive utilization among women in the reproductive age group in Edaga-hamus Town, Eastern zone, Tigray region, Ethiopia, June 2017. PLoS ONE 17(9): e0275607. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0275607
Published: September 28, 2022
Copyright: © 2022 The PLOS ONE Editors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.