PONE-D-20-09205

Perceived fairness of claimants undergoing a work disability evaluation: Development and validation of the Basel Fairness Questionnaire

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rosburg,

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Melita J. Giummarra

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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 authors developed and validated a comprehensive questionnaire aimed at measuring the perceived fairness of disability claimants that underwent a medical work capacity evaluation. The study covers an important and under-researched topic in disability evaluation and approaches recent criticism that have been raised, in particular with regard to the neglect of the claimants view. The questionnaire appears particularly promising as a basis for quality improvement purposes in the evaluation process.

Overall, the paper is interesting and well written and can be accepted pending appropriate revision. There are slight improvement opportunities regarding the English language and a less pedestrian and more direct wording. In addition, the study suffers from an overload of research steps and corresponding detail information presented in the results section. I would suggest thinking about dropping the last two methodological steps (comparison with expert rating, preceding questionnaires) which do not add sufficient robust information on the questionnaire's external validity (or alternatively I suggest reflecting on this in the study limitations section). Moreover, the authors should add a description of the sample characteristics and carefully check that all steps addressed in the results and discussion section are outlined in the methods (i.e. primarily comparison to claimant's preceding evaluations). For suggestions that are more detailed please see attachment.

Reviewer #2: The paper presents novel research that aims to measure the claimant experience, specifically perceived fairness, of disability evaluations. The research has been well justified, and the design and methodology used seemed appropriate. The results well explained and outlined in detail.

I had only a few queries about the development of the questionnaire and recruitment of participants and medical expert role. There is little detail explanation about the "subject-matter experts", and how they influenced the dimensions of the questionnaire. On the questionnaire, the principles of informational and interactive justice can easily be recognised in the questions, yet it is difficult to see how procedural justice is measured. It may be helpful for international readers to give a brief explanation of the Swiss disability evaluation process and note whether it is mandatory for claimants to attend a disability assessment. Might mandatory attendance influence the claimant to rate the evaluation positively if they feared a negative outcome?

It is unclear how the assessment centres or medical experts were chosen or enrolled in the study. Also how soon after examining a claimant did the medical experts complete their ratings? Were the medical experts aware the claimants were rating their performance? Why were 12 claimants not rated?

Overall the limitations of the research, and potential mechanisms for redress were well considered and thoroughly discussed. The recommendations for further study and evaluation of the questionnaire are also logical and commendable. With the further testing and refinement proposed by the authors, it seems this questionnaire could be used as a valuable feedback mechanism to inform and improve medical expert performance and thus the quality of assessment. This should then also benefit claimant experience. Creation of a tool to measure the fairness of disability evaluations is an important contribution to the field and potentially has applicability across jurisdictions.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review PONE-D-20-09205.docx

PONE-D-20-09205R1

Perceived fairness of claimants undergoing a work disability evaluation: Development and validation of the Basel Fairness Questionnaire

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rosburg,

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. I picked up some minor typographical corrections in your manuscript that should be addressed before I can accept it for publication. The suggested corrections are noted on a PDF of your revision.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 21 2020 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 plosone@plos.org. When you're 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic 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'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Melita J. Giummarra

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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 #1: I would like to thank the authors for their careful revision of the manuscript and for providing a satisfactory response to all issues raised by the reviewers. The study represents an important step towards increased fairness in disability evaluation and opens up an area with great potential.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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 #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.]

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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-09205_R1_editor.pdf

Perceived fairness of claimants undergoing a work disability evaluation: Development and validation of the Basel Fairness Questionnaire

PONE-D-20-09205R2

Dear Dr. Rosburg,

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.

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Kind regards,

Melita J. Giummarra

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: