PGPH-D-23-02256

Fear of the unknown: Experience of frontline healthcare workers with coping strategies used to face the COVID 19 pandemic.

PLOS Global Public Health

Dear Dr. Becerra Sarmiento,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Global Public Health. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Global Public Health’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

This is an important qualitative study exploring in detail the experience of frontline HCWs  of a middle-income country during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interesting to note that the HCWs learned from personal and other experience to face the difficult situation.

The impact from this will help in the preparedness for the next pandemic and also to evolve strategies

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 10 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at globalpubhealth@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pgph/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Suma Krishnasastry, MBBS, MD,DNB

Academic Editor

PLOS Global Public Health

Journal Requirements:

1. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

2. We have noticed that you have uploaded Supporting Information files, but you have not included a list of legends. Please add a full list of legends for your Supporting Information files after the references list.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Global Public Health’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

Reviewer #3: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Global Public Health does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The journal meet the PLOS Global Public Health’s publication criteria. Although there are no quantitiative data to review, the methodology and discussions were properly carried out in line with acceptable standards for a qualitiative research. The authors used appropriate research language; with clear statements and proper writing styles. The in-line referencing were correctly done and reflects rigorous literature review. The article makes for easy reading. The conclusion aligns properly with the methodlogy.

Reviewer #2: I read this article with interest.

However, the sampling and collection method suffers from a few shortcomings that could be a source of bias (choice of site, criteria for including participants). the choice of study site (health centre, hospital) and the criteria for recruiting participants should be included and detailed

Reviewer #3: Thank you for an insightful article.

A few observations were made.

1. There was no introduction in the abstract. It began with the aims of the study.

2. The are some grammatical errors which will need to be worked on. The following are some of the phrases I think need to be worked on:

"... the experience of HCWs during the attention of COVID-19 patients...."

"... conducted the study during August 2021....."

"..... at the beginning they imposed a challenge....."

"Such rejection acts were primary due to the fear..."

"More sadness and impotence were also a common feeling...."

"It is clear that to attend patients is very different...."

".... return to their jobsassoon a quarantine. "

" ...being more sensible to everything. "

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Prince Obinna Anyanwu

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Fear of the unknown: Experience of frontline healthcare workers with coping strategies used to face the COVID 19 pandemic.

PGPH-D-23-02256R1

Dear Miss Becerra Sarmiento,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Fear of the unknown: Experience of frontline healthcare workers with coping strategies used to face the COVID 19 pandemic.' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Global Public Health.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow up email. A member of our team will be in touch with a set of requests.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact globalpubhealth@plos.org.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Global Public Health.

Best regards,

Suma Krishnasastry, MBBS, MD,DNB, FRCP (Edin)

Academic Editor

PLOS Global Public Health

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):