Perceptions of non-Western immigrant women on having breast cancer and their experiences with treatment-related changes in body weight and lifestyle: A qualitative study

Anja JThCM de Kruif; Rabab Chrifou; Ghislaine L. Langeslag; Annemijn E. C. Sondaal; Margret M. M. Franssen; Ellen Kampman; Renate M. Winkels; Michiel R. de Boer; Marjolein Visser; Marjan J. Westerman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0235662

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 30, 2019
12 Dec 2019 Decision Letter - Rosemary Frey, Editor PONE-D-19-21419 Perceptions of non-Western immigrant women on having breast cancer and their experiences with treatment related changes in body weight and lifestyle: a qualitative study PLOS ONE Dear Dr de Kruif, 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. Please revise your manuscript in line with reviewer comments. In particular, please remove Boxes and titles as these are results not recommendations. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by 12 January 2020. 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. 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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: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: No ****** 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: The paper explored the experience of non-Western immigrant women from diagnosis to treatment of breast cancer and described the recommendation from the qualitative interview study. With an increased number of migrants in Western countries, it is timely to explore those minority group’s perception and experiences on cancer to develop a proper intervention to order to improve their quality of life. For the abstract, can you add subheadings to assist readers? The introduction showed a fairly good argument; however, some paragraphs lack details and the flow. For example, the first paragraph started with the increasing immigrant’s number then moved to the risk of cancer. The second and third paragraph are very short, with 2sentences and 3 sentences, respectively. Can you elaborate these paragraphs to build a story? Fourth paragraph does not flow well with the previous paragraph. Rewrite the fourth paragraph as you started with weight gain then suddenly moved to dietary intake. There must be another sentence to link the next sentence. In page 4, line 92-3, punctuation should be changed from ‘.’ To ‘,’. Otherwise the sentence of ‘in particular’ is an incomplete sentence. The manuscript has good details of methods and data analysis for a qualitative study. The result is quite lengthy, but one of thing I don’t understand is what those recommendation boxes for. I originally thought it would be the summary of recommendation, but it is still just transcribing the interview with the highlight. I assume you have presented those recommendations in boxes as they are important findings in your study. However, the current presentation looks no different from other themes. Table 1 might be better to re-structure to assist readers. I would suggest presenting variables under each characteristic. It would also be good to add % of sample next to the number. Page 11 line 221, ‘Each description of the three themes closes with a box with these recommendations’ Wouldn’t it be better to change as ‘ each description of the three themes presented in a box with…..’ ? In your discussion, you have summarised the study well at the beginning, but what is the significance of your study? There have been many studies showing that religion and culture have a large impact on women with breast cancer from diagnosis. Please state the significance of your study result. Some of the paragraphs in the discussion could be reorganised or re-written to have a clear topic sentence at the beginning and the summary sentence at the end. At this stage, your discussion does not tell a good story. Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper, it is very well written and interesting. I have only a few minor comments. Line 169: it may be helpful to provide a little bit more explanation about the meaning of 'member check'. Line 577: There's no participant identifier with the quote. Line 794: I don't think 'representative' is the right term to use in relation to qualitative studies, as generalisability is not the goal of this type of research. ****** 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". 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Revision 1
21 Jan 2020 Author Response To: Rosemary Frey Academic Editor PLOS ONE Dear Editor, We would like to thank you and the reviewers for assessing our paper, entitled “Perceptions of non-Western immigrant women on having breast cancer and their experiences with treatment related changes in body weight and lifestyle: a qualitative study”. The extensive review, from a variety of viewpoints, has definitely helped to strengthen our paper. We have written a point-by-point response to the comments of the reviewers below, which details the modifications we have made in the revised manuscript. We hope that these revisions will make the manuscript suitable for publication in your journal. On behalf of all authors, Anja de Kruif Reviewer #1: The paper explored the experience of non-Western immigrant women from diagnosis to treatment of breast cancer and described the recommendation from the qualitative interview study. With an increased number of migrants in Western countries, it is timely to explore those minority group’s perception and experiences on cancer to develop a proper intervention to order to improve their quality of life. Response: Thank you for your positive comments on our study. For the abstract, can you add subheadings to assist readers? Response: We agree that adding subheadings will definitively assist the readers. We have added these to the abstract and have expanded the text within the guidelines of Plos One and incorporated the significance of the study in the abstract, based on the suggestion of the reviewer. We hope this will more clearly show what the study entails. The introduction showed a fairly good argument; however, some paragraphs lack details and the flow. For example, the first paragraph started with the increasing immigrant’s number then moved to the risk of cancer. The second and third paragraph are very short, with 2 sentences and 3 sentences, respectively. Can you elaborate these paragraphs to build a story? Fourth paragraph does not flow well with the previous paragraph. Rewrite the fourth paragraph as you started with weight gain then suddenly moved to dietary intake. There must be another sentence to link the next sentence. In page 4, line 92-3, punctuation should be changed from ‘.’ To ‘,’. Otherwise the sentence of ‘in particular’ is an incomplete sentence. Response: Thank you very much for your clear remarks. We have rewritten the introduction based on your suggestions. The manuscript has good details of methods and data analysis for a qualitative study. Response: Thank you very much for your positive comments. The result is quite lengthy, but one of thing I don’t understand is what those recommendation boxes for. I originally thought it would be the summary of recommendation, but it is still just transcribing the interview with the highlight. I assume you have presented those recommendations in boxes as they are important findings in your study. However, the current presentation looks no different from other themes. Response: The boxes were meant as important findings and we apologize if this was not very clear. We therefore removed the boxes and placed these texts under the three themes as the respondents’ needs and recommendations (line 306-313; line 502-522; line 632-660) to better reflect the significance of the study and the structure of the article. In the discussion, our recommendations for the specific target groups based on the respondents’ needs and recommendations have been placed in one box in the ‘implications for practice’ section (line 753-766). Table 1 might be better to re-structure to assist readers. I would suggest presenting variables under each characteristic. It would also be good to add % of sample next to the number. Response: Thank you, we have restructured table 1 (from line 224). Page 11 line 221, ‘Each description of the three themes closes with a box with these recommendations’ Wouldn’t it be better to change as ‘ each description of the three themes presented in a box with…..’ ? Response: Based on your previous comment, we have now removed the boxes. In your discussion, you have summarised the study well at the beginning, but what is the significance of your study? There have been many studies showing that religion and culture have a large impact on women with breast cancer from diagnosis. Please state the significance of your study result. Some of the paragraphs in the discussion could be reorganised or re-written to have a clear topic sentence at the beginning and the summary sentence at the end. At this stage, your discussion does not tell a good story. Response: Thank you very much for this remark, it has helped us to better highlight the relevance of the study. We now emphasized the relevance of the study as much as possible in the abstract, in the introduction, in the methods (line 182-186) and in the summary at the beginning of the discussion (Line 680-689) and later on in the discussion (line 717-724). We hope the discussion now tells the story well. Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper, it is very well written and interesting. I have only a few minor comments. Response: Thank you very much for your positive comments. Line 169: it may be helpful to provide a little bit more explanation about the meaning of 'member check'. Response: in line 187-189 we explain the meaning of member check. Line 577: There's no participant identifier with the quote. Response: we have added a participant identifier to each quote (Line 565-566). Line 794: I don't think 'representative' is the right term to use in relation to qualitative studies, as generalisability is not the goal of this type of research. Response: We agree and have replaced the word representative for heterogeneous in line 785 Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewersx.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235662.r002
22 Jun 2020 Decision Letter - Rosemary Frey, Editor Perceptions of non-Western immigrant women on having breast cancer and their experiences with treatment related changes in body weight and lifestyle: a qualitative study PONE-D-19-21419R1 Dear Dr. de Kruif, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 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 onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Rosemary Frey Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. 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 #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 4. 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 #2: No ****** 5. 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 #2: Yes ****** 6. 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 #2: I am satisfied that the authors have addressed all reviewer suggestions, and have improved the manuscript where necessary. It's a great paper. ****** 7. 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 #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235662.r003
Formally Accepted
25 Jun 2020 Acceptance Letter - Rosemary Frey, Editor PONE-D-19-21419R1 Perceptions of non-Western immigrant women on having breast cancer and their experiences with treatment-related changes in body weight and lifestyle: a qualitative study Dear Dr. de Kruif: I'm 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 let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Rosemary Frey Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235662.r004

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