**2.3 Procedure**

The participants were contacted through the social workers' association in Iceland, which had a total of 596 registered social workers when the study was conducted, thereof 555 registered as working (43 were not working). The purpose was to get responses from all social workers in Iceland, since it is likely that most social workers in the country are registered in the social workers' association. Thus, the questionnaire was send to as close to the whole population of social workers as is possible, not only to a sample [36]. All social workers registered at the social workers' association received an e-mail inviting them to participate, with a short and concise text describing the purpose of the study. If they choose to participate, they clicked on a link to a website, where they could access the study in Survey Monkey. The first e-mail invitation was sent in the beginning of February 2022 and followed by two reminders later in that same month. It took the participants on the average 7 minutes to fill out the questionnaire.

## **2.4 Data processing and ethical considerations**

The data were processed using excel and SPSS. No questions were included in the questionnaire that could be traced to individual social workers. However, since Iceland is a small country, with relatively few number of social workers, it might had been possible to trace information to particular social workers, by looking at more than one variables, which might have influenced the participant ratio in this study. However, in the introduction text, social workers were assured that the data would be analyzed in such a way that they would be protected from being known in the results. Thus, the data were analyzed in such a way that it was not possible to trace the data to certain individuals.
