Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 23, 2019
Decision Letter - Iratxe Puebla, Editor

PONE-D-19-26757

Non-antibiotic Medication Use in an Indonesian Community Cohort 0-18 Months of Age

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr At Thobari,

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.

The manuscript has been assessed by two reviewers; their comments are available below. The reviewers find the work of relevance but have raised some recommendations regarding data presentation as well as comments around the statistical analyses undertaken.

Could you please revise the manuscript to carefully address the concerns raised by the reviewers?

We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Jan 07 2020 11:59PM. 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.

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). This letter should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
  • A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
  • An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. This file should be uploaded as separate file and labeled 'Manuscript'.

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,

Iratxe Puebla

Senior Managing Editor, PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section:

I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: NSB is a paid employee of PT Biofarma. PT Biofarma is a state-owned company (owned by Indonesia government) that provides all vaccines for Indonesia National Immunization Program. Additionally, PT Biofarma was one of the funders for the RV3-BB Phase IIB trial. The trial was a phase IIB trial and while the RV3-BB rotavirus vaccine is not yet marketed, this vaccine is being developed with the intention for eventual usage in the national immunization program. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

We note that you received funding from a commercial source: PT Biofarma.

Please provide an amended Competing Interests Statement that explicitly states this commercial funder, along with any other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, marketed products, etc.

Within this Competing Interests Statement, please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests).  If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared.

Please include your amended Competing Interests Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

Please know it is PLOS ONE policy for corresponding authors to declare, on behalf of all authors, all potential competing interests for the purposes of transparency. PLOS defines a competing interest as anything that interferes with, or could reasonably be perceived as interfering with, the full and objective presentation, peer review, editorial decision-making, or publication of research or non-research articles submitted to one of the journals. Competing interests can be financial or non-financial, professional, or personal. Competing interests can arise in relationship to an organization or another person. Please follow this link to our website for more details on competing interests: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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: Table 5: column 5 does not show % of participants

Table 6: whats the difference between other infections disease group and other viral infections.Are viral infections included in other infections.I think it can be combined to one group as other infections

Reviewer #2: There are two points to be modified in the coming revision:

1. Reading through the manuscript, I found only tables presented in a comprehensive way but no any figures demonstrated. I would recommend the authors present their results in Figures (e.g., pie charts).

2. Regarding the statistical assessments on the data collected, it is clear that there are only very descriptive metrics calculated while the more comparative statistics should be performed to get insights of the cohorts. It is also necessary to include more sophisticated statistics for a report on cohort studies.

**********

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: Yes: Xi-Nian Zuo

[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. 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 us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Revision 1

Dear Academic Editor and Reviewers

Thank you for spending your valuable time to read our previous manuscript and giving insightful suggestions to help us improve the quality of our manuscript.

Along with this letter are the Academic Editor and Reviewers comments, followed by our point-by-point response in addition to making the changes in the revised manuscript. Responses to the Academic Editor and Reviewers’ comments are typed in blue font, and the changes made in the manuscript are marked using track changes. Each author has given approval to the final form of this revision.

In this cover letter, we also would like to propose the following updated competing interests statement as suggested by the Academic Editor:

“The authors have the following interests: NSB is a paid employee of PT Biofarma. PT Biofarma is a state-owned company (owned by Indonesia government) that provides all vaccines for Indonesia National Immunization Program. Additionally, PT Biofarma was one of the non-commercial funders for the RV3-BB Phase IIB trial. No consultation was done to the funder relating to the trial. The trial was a phase IIB trial and while the RV3-BB rotavirus vaccine is not yet marketed, this vaccine is being developed with the intention for eventual usage in the national immunization program. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.”

We believe that the revision on our manuscript will improve the quality of our paper. We look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Jarir At Thobari, MD, DPharm, PhD

Department of Pharmacology and Therapy and Pediatric Research Office (PRO) Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing

Universitas Gadjah Mada

On behalf of all authors

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers (v1.1_31Dec2019).docx
Decision Letter - Natasha McDonald, Editor

PONE-D-19-26757R1

Non-antibiotic Medication Use in an Indonesian Community Cohort 0-18 Months of Age

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. At Thobari,

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 submit your revised manuscript by Jul 24 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,

Natasha McDonald

Associate Editor

PLOS ONE

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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 #3: (No Response)

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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 #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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 #3: Yes

**********

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 #3: 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 #1: one additional comment-How statistics were done for table 4.Please elaborate as its not easy to understand

Reviewer #3: Abstract: Early on in the abstract make the age range of participants clear.

What was the original aim of the study before the concomitant meds were looked at in this paper?

Add precision around estimates.

Line 207: make it clear what the numbers are (presume standard deviation).

The regression: how does this add to your clinical understanding?

What is the distribution of the variable number of drug regimens? Is linear regression the best model?

Are the assumptions met?

Was patient included as a variable in the model? Is it modelling how many drug regimens at a given time (or age) or overall from 0-18 months in a child’s life? This is a little unclear.

Table 7 include precision estimates.

How is 1518 people 100% when there were over 1600 patients on study? Did the others not have AES, or just not have it recorded? This is an important distinction to be made.

Line 300. Add a .

Line 389 and 390. How big were these 2 studies? If they were small there may not be a significant difference in the rates.

Figure 2 and 3- each patient could contribute multiple times to each result couldn’t they?

**********

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 #3: 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.

Revision 2

Dear Academic Editor and Reviewers

Thank you for spending your valuable time to read our previously revised manuscript and keep giving insightful suggestions to help us improve the quality of our manuscript.

Along with this letter are the Reviewers comments, followed by our point-by-point response in addition to making the changes in the revised manuscript. Responses to the Reviewers’ comments are typed in blue font, and the changes made in the manuscript are marked using track changes. Each author has given approval to the final form of this revision.

We believe that the revision on our manuscript will improve the quality of our paper. We look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Sincerely,

Jarir At Thobari, MD, DPharm, PhD

Department of Pharmacology and Therapy and Pediatric Research Office (PRO)

Faculty of Medicine, Public Health, and Nursing

Universitas Gadjah Mada

On behalf of all authors

1. Reviewer #1: one additional comment-How statistics were done for table 4.Please elaborate as its not easy to understand

Response: We thank the reviewer for noting this issue. After re-considering the best model to explore the factors that influenced the number of drug regimen in our study, we decided that instead of using a linear regression as in our previous manuscript, a logistic regression is better to provide the RR. Therefore, at the following lines we have added some changes:

Line 230-238: “A logistic regression was performed to explore the relationship between the reason of medication use, drug formulation, outpatient/inpatient set-ting, and the age of participant when using the medication with the number of non-antibiotic drug regimen.“

We also have revised the Table 4 and lines 348-355 (discussion section).

2. Reviewer #3: Abstract: Early on in the abstract make the age range of partici-pants clear.

Response: Thank you for noting this, now we have added “aged 0-18 months” at line 53

“A post-hoc study of the RV3-BB Phase IIb trial to children aged 0-18 months which was conducted in Indonesia during January 2013 to July 2016. Any concomitant medication use and health events among 1621 trial participants during the 18 months of follow-up were documented. Information on medication use included the frequency, formulation, indication, duration of usage, number of regimens, medication types, and therapeutic classes.”

3. What was the original aim of the study before the concomitant meds were looked at in this paper?

Response: The original aim of the study was primarily to evaluate the efficacy of RV3-BB vaccine against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis in children aged up to 18 months. This explanation has been stated at line 100-102.

4. Add precision around estimates.

Line 207: make it clear what the numbers are (presume standard deviation).

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. Now we have added some changes:

Line 205: with an average of 5.69 ± 4.80 drugs/child.

Line 207: Average use of non-antibiotic medications per AE was 1.72 (SD±0.99).

The regression: how does this add to your clinical understanding?

What is the distribution of the variable number of drug regimens? Is linear re-gression the best model? Are the assumptions met? Was patient included as a variable in the model? Is it modelling how many drug regimens at a given time (or age) or overall from 0-18 months in a child’s life? This is a little unclear.

Response: We thank the reviewer for noting this issue. After re-considering the best model to explore the factors that influenced the number of drug regimen in our study, we decided that instead of using a linear regression as in our previous manuscript, a logistic regression is better to provide the RR. Therefore, at the following lines we have added some changes:

Line 230-238: “A logistic regression was performed to explore the relationship between the reason of medication use, drug formulation, outpatient/inpatient set-ting, and the age of participant when using the medication with the number of non-antibiotic drug regimen.“

We also have revised the Table 4 and lines 348-355 (discussion section).

5. Table 7 include precision estimates.

How is 1518 people 100% when there were over 1600 patients on study? Did the others not have AES, or just not have it recorded? This is an important dis-tinction to be made.

Response: Thank you for noting this. At table 7, we only included participants who had at least one AE during the study, therefore 1518 (of 1621) was 100%. Now we have added this information under the table.

“The table included only participants who had at least one AE during the 18 months of follow-up (N=1518/1621). The list is ordered by the proportion of ad-verse event (AE) episodes treated with non-antibiotic medications. SE: Standard Error of proportion.”

6. Line 300. Add a .

Response: Thank you for noting this, we have added . at line 300 (now at line 301).

7. Line 389 and 390. How big were these 2 studies? If they were small there may not be a significant difference in the rates.

Response:

Thank you for your suggestion, now we have revised the articles at line 390-393 by adding the total children of each study:

“Half of our participants used at least one systemic antihistamine during their first 18 month of life, which is higher compared to other studies showing 31% of 4511 children had used antihistamines by the age of 2 years in the Netherlands [1], and 17% of 1701 children during the first 5 years of life in Sweden [20].”

8. Figure 2 and 3- each patient could contribute multiple times to each result couldn’t they?

Response: Yes, each patient could contribute multiple times to each result. Now we have added this information under the figure legend. Thank you.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers_2nd revision (ver2.1_15Jun2020).docx
Decision Letter - Emma Link, Editor

PONE-D-19-26757R2

Non-antibiotic Medication Use in an Indonesian Community Cohort 0-18 Months of Age

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. At Thobari,

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 submit your revised manuscript by Oct 26 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,

Emma Link, DPhil

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

I can see some alterations to the paper, which assist with clarity of understanding. There are a few other areas for consideration before this could be published.

In the statistical analysis section line 185 of track changed doc it states that "descriptive data, the results were presented as mean, median, frequency and percentages". Then on line 207 it states "an average of 5.69 +/- 4.80 drugs/child". Is the 4.80 the median? If not, please explain what this is, and/or change the statistical analysis methods.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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: (No Response)

**********

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: 1.Table 5: Row 5 and row 14- what does antiinfective agents in row 5 mean? is it antibiotics for GI infections .If it is antibiotics then it should be removed as table is showing non antibiotic medications. Similarly I believe antiseptics and disinfectants in row 15 means topical agents

2.Table 5 : row 7 " drugs for obstructive airway disease " I believe are bronchodilators. Bronchodilators gives a better understanding for these drugs

Table 5: row 8 -are these corticosteroids for topical use only?

3.Figure 3:Ear disorders - antiseptics and disinfectants are topical preparations?

4.Line 343-344: reformatting of sentence as " This also explains a usage/consumption of higher number of drugs by older infants...something like that

5.Line 345-346.Reformatting of sentence The inclusion of prescription and non prescription drugs and the exclusion of antibiotics in our study.....

6.Lline 352,353.reformatting of sentence.Respiratory disorders,gastrointestinal disorders and unspecified pyrexia manifest as multiple symptoms....

7.Line 364.sentence formatting.Similar to other studies,respirator system disorder was the primary indication for medication use in our study

8.Line 371-373.sentence formatting.analgesics/antipyretics....sentence is not very clear.This drug usage pattern was similar to other studies

9.Line 378s-seems like you are comparing the same age group population.it does not seem different in age.Please clarify

10.Line386-whats CCMs

11.Line 396..sentence formatting..higher incidence of respiratory tract infections

12Line 408-409.Its a better idea to mention percent of deaths from each drug

13Line 427.sentence formatting.Although not being investigated in children..

14.conclusion paragraph reformatting.The majority of children were exposed.....A variety of medications were used.....This calls for further education....

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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

[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.

Revision 3

I. Academic Editor comment

1. I can see some alterations to the paper, which assist with clarity of understanding. There are a few other areas for consideration before this could be published.

In the statistical analysis section line 185 of track changed doc it states that "descriptive data, the results were presented as mean, median, frequency and percentages". Then on line 207 it states, "an average of 5.69 +/- 4.80 drugs/child". Is the 4.80 the median? If not, please explain what this is, and/or change the statistical analysis methods.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. The 4.80 is a standard deviation of the mean (5.69). We have revised the “average” on line 205 into “a mean (SD)”.

II. Reviewer #1 comments

1. Table 5: Row 5 and row 14- what does anti-infective agents in row 5 mean? is it anti-biotics for GI infections. If it is antibiotics then it should be removed as table is showing non antibiotic medications. Similarly, I believe antiseptics and disinfectants in row 15 means topical agents

Response: We apologize for the ambiguity in table %. In Table 5 Row 5, we used the exact ATC WHO therapeutic class name of “antidiarrheals, intestinal antiinflammary /anti-infective agents”. However, we have already removed the anti-infective drugs from the very beginning. Therefore, to avoid this ambiguity, now we have revised the therapeutic class name in Table 5 Row 5 as “antidiarrheals and intestinal antiinflammary agents” only.

In Table 5, Row 14, indeed, antiseptics and disinfectants are topical agents. Now we have added such information in Table 5 Row 14. This additional information is also for addressing the reviewer 3rd comment “ear disorders – antiseptics and disinfectants are topical preparations only?”

2. Table 5: Row 7 “drugs for obstructive airway disease” I believe are bronchodilators. Bronchodilators gives a better understanding for these drugs.

Table 5: Row 8 –are these corticosteroids for topical use only?

Response: Row 7: Yes, this therapeutic class of ATC WHO contains any bronchodilator types. We have revised it into “Bronchodilators” as your suggestion. Thank you.

In Row 8 – Yes, the corticosteroids for dermatological preparations are topical agents as well. Now we have revised it into “corticosteroids (topical agents)”. Thank you for noting this.

3. Figure 3: Ear disorders – antiseptics and disinfectants are topical preparations?

Response: We have added an additional information to address this suggestion on Table 5 Row 14.

4. Line 343-344: reformatting of sentence as " This also explains a usage/consumption of higher number of drugs by older infants...something like that

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence as your suggestion on line 342-343: “This also explains a consumption of higher number of drugs by older infants (Table 4).”

5. Line 345-346.Reformatting of sentence the inclusion of prescription and non-prescription drugs and the exclusion of antibiotics in our study.....

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence as your suggestion on line 344: “The inclusion of prescription and non-prescription drugs and the exclusion of antibiotics in our study also might affect the average number of drug regimen compared to those who calculated prescribed drugs only without excluding antibiotic, as non-prescribed drug tend to be used in milder conditions that need fewer number of drug per regimen.”

6. Line 352,353. reformatting of sentence. Respiratory disorders, gastrointestinal disorders and unspecified pyrexia manifest as multiple symptoms....

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence as your suggestion on line 351: “Respiratory disorders, gastrointestinal disorders, and unspecified pyrexia manifest as multiple symptoms, thus may encourage child caretakers to self-medicate the children with multiple over-the-counter (OTC)”

7. Line 364.sentence formatting. Similar to other studies, respirator system disorder was the primary indication for medication use in our study

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence as your suggestion on line 361-362: “Similar to other studies, respiratory system disorder was the primary indication for medication use in our study”.

8. Line 371-373.sentence formatting Analgesics/antipyretics....sentence is not very clear. This drug usage pattern was similar to other studies

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence as your suggestion on line 370: “This drug usage pattern was similar to other studies”

9. Line 378s-seems like you are comparing the same age group population.it does not seem different in age. Please clarify

Response: The age of our participants ranged from 0-18 months, compared to the age of 0-18 years in the other study. This might sound similar and confuse the reader, therefore we have reformatted the sentence in line 375 into: “The reasons for different results were difficult to determine, but possible explanations might be due to the younger age of participants in our study.”

10. Line 386-what CCMs

Response: Thank you for noting this. CCMs is an abbreviation of cough and cold medications. We have added this information in the first abbreviation in line 384.

11. Line 396..sentence formatting Higher incidence of respiratory tract infections

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence in line 393-394 as your suggestion into “This might partly reflect a higher incidence of respiratory tract infections in our population.”

12. Line 408-409.Its a better idea to mention percent of deaths from each drug

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have put the percentage of deaths from each drug in line 405-406.

13. Line 427.sentence formatting Although not being investigated in children.

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence in line 424 as your suggestion into: “Although not being investigated in children, vitamin B6 overdose in adult has been known to induce neurotoxic syndrome”.

14. Conclusion paragraph reformatting The majority of children were exposed.....A variety of medications were used.....This calls for further education....

Response: Thank you. We have reformatted the sentence in conclusion paragraph (line 442) as your suggestion into: “The majority of children were exposed to at least one medication during their early life. A variety of medications were used, including those where the evidence of efficacy and safety in pediatric population is lacking. This calls for further education to improve caregivers’ knowledge on appropriate self-medication in children, and to enhance the guideline compliance by health practitioners to ensure the therapy given to children will be of most benefit.“

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to reviewers_3rd revision (ver3.1_26Sept2020).docx
Decision Letter - Emma Link, Editor

Non-antibiotic Medication Use in an Indonesian Community Cohort 0-18 Months of Age

PONE-D-19-26757R3

Dear Dr. At Thobari,

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,

Emma Link, DPhil

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

I participated as a reviewer for the initial evaluation of this manuscript.

Reviewers' comments:

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Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Emma Link, Editor

PONE-D-19-26757R3

Non-antibiotic Medication Use in an Indonesian Community Cohort 0-18 Months of Age

Dear Dr. At Thobari:

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. Emma Link

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

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