PONE-D-20-14581

Psychological distress symptoms among healthcare professionals are significantly influenced by psychosocial work context, Ethiopia: A cross-sectional analysis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kabito,

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Amir H. Pakpour, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: The manuscript is generally well written with clear descriptions in the study purpose. However, some minor points need to be addressed in the revision.

1. Please adhere to the use of defined abbreviations. For example, in line 77, there is a "psychological distress" term. However, the psychological distress has been defined as PD at the very beginning of the manuscript. Line 73 also has the similar problem. I do not point out all of them, the authors should check by themselves throughout the manuscript.

2. Line 118. Here comes a term of "K10". After re-read the manuscript, I can identify that the K10 indicates the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. However, the authors did not define the K10 when they mention the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale.

3. Line 119. Research cannot be counted. Therefore, the authors should correct "researches" into "research".

4. Line 138. The Data quality control section is the biggest problem in the manuscript. It is unclear why the authors define these actions as data quality control. The section reads like the descriptions of language validity. Moreover, some descriptions are confusing in the section. Specifically, back-translation indicates translating local language back to English. I cannot understand why the authors can back translate the English to local language. Also, did the authors conduct a forward translation? Moreover, ensuring language validity (i.e., make sure that the local language questionnaire is equivalent to the English questionnaire) is not about data quality. The language validity ensures the questionnaire validity.

5. Following the previous comment. If the authors want to present how they control the data, they should inform the readers how they make sure that the data input and data collections have no errors.

6. Table 1. Not everyone is familiar with the Ethiopian Birr. Please provide an exchange rate of the Ethiopian Birr with USD.

7. Also Table 1. I think that the footnote a should go earlier than footnote b.

8. Table 3. I cannot understand why the authors mentioned "Hosmer and Lemeshow test = 0.754 showed that the model fitted well" here. Also, there is a superscript b for Others in the Profession category. However, there is no footnote to explain the meaning of b.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Psychological distress symptoms among healthcare professionals are significantly influenced by psychosocial work context, Ethiopia: A cross-sectional analysis

PONE-D-20-14581R1

Dear Dr. Kabito,

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,

Amir H. Pakpour, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: