Qualification programmes for immigrant health professionals: A systematic review

Sidra Khan-Gökkaya; Sanna Higgen; Mike Mösko

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0224933

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 5, 2019
19 Sep 2019 Decision Letter - Sharon Mary Brownie, Editor PONE-D-19-22024 Qualification programmes for immigrant health professionals: a systematic review PLOS ONE Dear Sidra Khan-Gokkaya, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’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. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by 20th October. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. 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Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Sharon Mary Brownie Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: The author/s are requested to pay careful attention to reviewer comments. Please re-submit with a detailed response to each comment including comprehensive response to the reviewer request that your literature search is updated to include work published 2017-2019. Also consider seeking specialist assistance in respect to how the review of studies are presented in the manuscript. Specialist English review and edit is also recommended. Journal requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please remove your figure 1 from within your manuscript file, leaving only an individual TIFF/EPS image file, uploaded separately as a figure file. This will be automatically included in the reviewers’ PDF. 3. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). 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 ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE 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 ****** 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: This was an interesting review and I enjoyed reading your manuscript. However, the following comments need to be addressed: 1. The search needs to be updated as the last search was conducted "during August 2017" (page 5, last paragraph). The search is dated and it will be interesting to see the articles published between August 2017-August 2019. 2. In the methods section (page 5-8), there was no mention of an analysis plan. Did the authors employ a narrative synthesis? 3. Additionally, how were the quality of the included articles appraised with respect to bias? Was there any quality assessment tool/instrument used, for example Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale? If so, the authors need to report this and also add a column to indicate same in Table 2. 4. The authors have highlighted using the Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model and created a heading 'quality assessment' page 23 (line 271). I will recommend the heading to be rephrased along the lines of 'quality assessment of training reported in the included studies' or 'evaluation of training in the included studies' (these are merely suggestions). The authors can come-up with a more suitable heading. But traditionally, quality assessment in systematic reviews are usually alluded to assessing the methodological rigor, bias, and reporting of the studies included in the review. 5. In Table 2, pages (11-20), it will be useful to have the First author's surname and year of publication in the first column and then add the reference next to it. For example, Andrew, 2010 [18]. This will be more informative for the reader as opposed to the current form. 6. A column for study design needs to be added in Table 2 (pages 11-20). 7. The 'quality assessment' results describing the Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model (pages 23-25) will be difficult to comprehend by a lay reader, the authors need to explain to the readers what the %s or ratings mean and their implications. Additionally, the references should be substituted with the First Author's surname and year of publication so the reader knows the score for each included study. 8. The manuscript should be proof-read once again for punctuation and grammatical issues. 8. The document Reviewer #2: Thank you for requesting me to review this manuscript. The study, a systematic review of Qualification programs for immigrant health professionals addresses a very important area given the number of increasing refugees and immigrants globally. The study analyzed evidence based qualification programs for all health professionals. The selection process of the articles is very clear, as well as the assessment of the quality. The findings are summarized well. The use of an educational evaluation framework together with the MMAT strengthened the review. It was interesting to note that only 2 articles addressed refugees given the current number of refugees. The introduction notes the number of international migrants, perhaps the number of refugees could also be noted, unless they are included in the migrants category. The discussion section on page 29 line 378 includes aspects of limitations. Perhaps these could be moved to pages 30 -31 which discusses the strengths and limitations of the study. There are minor edits that were noted, like the mean age of females in 51 on page 17. On page 22, revisit the abbreviations used to make sure they match content under discussion. ****** 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. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [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 to be viewed.] 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. 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Revision 1
21 Oct 2019 Author Response Dear Sharon Mary Brownie, Dear Reviewers, On behalf of Sanna Higgen and Mike Mösko I would like to express my sincerest thanks for your valuable support, your advice and your comments which we carefully considered within the process of our revision. I take this opportunity to address the points raised by the academic editors and reviewers. Reviewer 1. P1: The search needs to be updated as the last search was conducted "during August 2017" (page 5, last paragraph). Reply: We are very grateful for this important advice. We have now updated the literature search including work published between August 2017 and August 2019. We have uploaded the updated PRISMA flowchart (Fig 1) and the updated supporting information (S1 Search strings). Reviewer 1. P2: In the methods section (page 5-8), there was no mention of an analysis plan. Did the authors employ a narrative synthesis? Reply: We have added a sentence (page 10) on the analysis plan. Reviewer 1. P3: Additionally, how were the quality of the included articles appraised with respect to bias? Was there any quality assessment tool/instrument used, for example Newcastle-Ottawa Qual-ity Assessment Scale? If so, the authors need to report this and also add a column to indicate same in Table 2. Reply: We agree that it is very important to assess the quality of the studies with respect to bias. In our study, the Mixed-Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) was used to assess the quality of the studies. The MMAT is to date the only tool that can be applied to qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods studies which makes it valuable for this review as all three study types were included in the review. The tool also assesses risk of bias with respect to the included groups, the selection process and the representativeness of the sample (see Ta-ble 3). Based on this assessment we discussed the risk of bias in the discussion session (pages 30 + 33-36). In order to make this clearer, we have added a paragraph explaining the MMAT tool (page 9). Reviewer 1. P4: The authors have highlighted using the Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model and created a heading 'quality assessment' page 23 (line 271). I will recommend the heading to be re-phrased along the lines of 'quality assessment of training reported in the included studies' or 'evalu-ation of training in the included studies' (these are merely suggestions). The authors can come-up with a more suitable heading. But traditionally, quality assessment in systematic reviews are usually alluded to assessing the methodological rigor, bias, and reporting of the studies included in the re-view. Reply: We have rephrased the heading to “Quality assessment of the Programmes”. Reviewer 1. P5: In Table 2, pages (11-20), it will be useful to have the First author's surname and year of publication in the first column and then add the reference next to it. For example, Andrew, 2010 [18]. This will be more informative for the reader as opposed to the current form. Reply: This advice is very helpful. We have added the First author’s surname and year of publication in Table 2 and 3. Correspondingly, we have uploaded updated version of supporting information S3 and S4. Reviewer 1. P6: A column for study design needs to be added in Table 2 (pages 11-20). Reply: We have now added a column for study design in Table 2. Reviewer 1. P7: The 'quality assessment' results describing the Kirkpatrick's training evaluation model (pages 23-25) will be difficult to comprehend by a lay reader, the authors need to explain to the readers what the %s or ratings mean and their implications. Additionally, the references should be substituted with the First Author's surname and year of publication so the reader knows the score for each included study. Reply: We can understand this concern very well. Thus, we have added a paragraph explaining the Quality Assessment Tool and the Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation model in which we also explain what the %s and ratings mean (page 9). We have also substituted references with the first Authors surname and year of publi-cation in Table 3. Editor: Specialist English review and edit is also recommended Reviewer 1. P8: The manuscript should be proof-read once again for punctuation and grammatical issues. Reply: We apologise for mistakes in the manuscript. The article has now been proof-read by a native speaker. Reviewer 2: The introduction notes the number of international migrants, perhaps the number of refugees could also be noted, unless they are included in the migrants category. Reply: This distinction is truly very important. The number in the introduction refers to migrants as well as refugees as they are included in the category of migrants. Reviewer 2: The discussion section on page 29 line 378 includes aspects of limitations. Perhaps these could be moved to pages 30 -31 which discusses the strengths and limitations of the study. Reply: We agree with this concern. Due to the topic of this paper it was important for us, to put these consid-erations at the beginning of the discussion in order to be able to lead the discussion critically. We also wanted the reader to read the discussion in light of the limitations to ensure critical reflection and contextualisation. Reviewer 2: There are minor edits that were noted, like the mean age of females in 51 on page 17. Reply: We have carefully revised the article and hopefully fixed all the minor mistakes. Reviewer 2: On page 22, revisit the abbreviations used to make sure they match content under discus-sion. Reply: The abbreviations on page 22 refer to the evaluation methods. We did not pick up on these single methods in the discussion session as we focused on the overall quality of the methods. Therefore we may have not understood this point and would kindly request an elaboration on this in order to fix it. Editor P.1, 2 and 3: (1) Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, in-cluding those for file naming. (2). Please remove your figure 1 from within your manuscript file, leaving only an individual TIFF/EPS image file, uploaded separately as a figure file. This will be au-tomatically included in the reviewers’ PDF. (3). Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure. Reply: We apologise for any deviations from PLOS ONE’s style requirements. We have now revised the man-uscript according to PLOS ONE’s style requirements, removed figure 1 and referred to figure 1 in the text. All changes throughout the manuscript were highlighted and uploaded along with an unmarked version. We are very grateful for your support that has contributed to the improvement of the article. We hope, that the revised version of the manuscript now meets with your approval. We look forward to receiving your reply. Yours sincerely, Sidra Khan-Gökkaya Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224933.r002
25 Oct 2019 Decision Letter - Sharon Mary Brownie, Editor Qualification programmes for immigrant health professionals: a systematic review PONE-D-19-22024R1 Dear Dr. Sidra Khan-Gokkaya, We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication. Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and 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 onepress@plos.org. With kind regards, Sharon Mary Brownie Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers concerns have been addressed Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224933.r003
Formally Accepted
8 Nov 2019 Acceptance Letter - Sharon Mary Brownie, Editor PONE-D-19-22024R1 Qualification programmes for immigrant health professionals: a systematic review Dear Dr. Khan-Gökkaya: I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper at this point, to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. For any other questions or concerns, please email plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE. With kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Sharon Mary Brownie Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0224933.r004

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