PMEN-D-25-00177

Effects of perinatal mobile apps for couples on psychosocial and parenting outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

PLOS Mental Health

Dear Dr. Taype-Rondan,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Mental Health and I am sorry for the delay in reaching a decision - thank you for your patience. After careful consideration of the reviewer reports, we feel that your paper has merit but does not yet fully meet PLOS Mental 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.

Please address all of the points raised by the reviewers, which you can find below.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 21 2025 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 mentalhealth@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pmen/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Karli Montague-Cardoso

Executive Editor

PLOS Mental Health

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3. As required by our policy on Data Availability, please ensure your manuscript or supplementary information includes the following: 

A numbered table of all studies identified in the literature search, including those that were excluded from the analyses.  

For every excluded study, the table should list the reason(s) for exclusion.  

If any of the included studies are unpublished, include a link (URL) to the primary source or detailed information about how the content can be accessed. 

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If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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.

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 Mental 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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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

PLOS Mental 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

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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: Introduction is well-structured!

Methods

- Revise the full-form of PROSPERO (International prospective register of systematic reviews)

- State research question in 'Research question and eligibility criteria' section.

- Even though you have a separate supplementary file for search strategies utilized for each databases, briefly describe major search terms in the 'search strategy' section.

- Can you give a bit more information about standardized data extraction form? Was there any specific form or did you make form in Excel?

- Risk of bias assessment: Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) is the recommended tool to assess the risk of bias in RCTs. Why did you use RoB 1.0?

- Certainty of the evidence assessment: State full form of STAI scale. Correct spelling of 'literature' before citation [26].

Results

- While there is a separate figure 1 for study selection. I would suggest authors to include a brief description of selection (e.g., how many duplicates removed, how many were screened for full-text, etc.).

- I believe this review is focused on effect of mobile app (app based intervention) but fourth study (Abbass-Dick 2019) is related to providing intervention through website (eHealth Breastfeeding Website). Can you please explain how did this study meet your inclusion criteria?

- In addition to describing what study used what scales (e.g., EDPS, PPSS), I suggest authors to provide appropriate reference for those scales.

- In table 2, in the first column (outcomes), suggest citing those studies which reported each outcomes (e.g., cite 2 RCTs reporting postnatal depression).

- Include results of meta-analyses below each figure headings.

Strengths and Limitations

- In strengths, authors mentioned that search was conducted without

language restrictions. Did this review found studies that were conducted in language other than English? If not, it may not be suitable to include that as an strength.

Reviewer #2: This article is remarkably precise and well-composed. I commend the authors for their meticulous attention to detail and clarity throughout the manuscript.

I have one suggestion to further enhance the article: in certain paragraphs—such as the one cited below—it would be beneficial to include individual references for each key component or claim. Citing a single reference at the end of a paragraph may lead to ambiguity regarding the source of specific information. Providing direct citations for each element will strengthen the transparency and traceability of the evidence presented.

"we evaluated five key domains: risk of

bias (using the Cochrane risk of bias tool), imprecision (considering whether

confidence intervals included one or two MIDs), indirectness (by comparing our

PICO question (population, intervention, comparison, outcome) with those of the

included studies), inconsistency (assessing whether studies point results were

distributed on one or both sides of an MID), and publication bias (examined in

meta-analyses with at least 10 studies) [23]."

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Azam Aslani

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Effects of perinatal mobile apps for couples on psychosocial and parenting outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

PMEN-D-25-00177R1

Dear Dr Taype-Rondan,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Effects of perinatal mobile apps for couples on psychosocial and parenting outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Mental 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 mentalhealth@plos.org.

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

Best regards,

Karli Montague-Cardoso

Staff Editor

PLOS Mental Health

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Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):