RETRACTED: Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures and its associated factors among Gondar City residents: A community-based cross-sectional study in Northwest Ethiopia

Zelalem Nigussie Azene; Mehari Woldemariam Merid; Atalay Goshu Muluneh; Demiss Mulatu Geberu; Getahun Molla Kassa; Melaku Kindie Yenit; Sewbesew Yitayih Tilahun; Kassahun Alemu Gelaye; Habtamu Sewunet Mekonnen; Abere Woretaw Azagew; Chalachew Adugna Wubneh; Getaneh Mulualem Belay; Nega Tezera Asmamaw; Chilot Desta Agegnehu; Telake Azale; Animut Tagele Tamiru; Bayew Kelkay Rade; Eden Bishaw Taye; Asefa Adimasu Taddese; Zewudu Andualem; Henok Dagne; Kiros Terefe Gashaye; Gebisa Guyasa Kabito; Tesfaye Hambisa Mekonnen; Sintayehu Daba; Jember Azanaw; Tsegaye Adane; Mekuriaw Alemayeyu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244265

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 2, 2020
1 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Francesco Di Gennaro, Editor PONE-D-20-27576 Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures and its associated factors among Gondar City residents: a community-based cross-sectional study in northwest Ethiopia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Azene, 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 30 October. 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. 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Please ensure you have provided sufficient details to replicate the analyses such as: a) a statement as to whether your sample can be considered representative of a larger population, and b) a description of how participants were recruited. 3. Thank you for stating in the text of your manuscript "Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of University of Gondar and an official permission letter was gained from the city administrative office. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant before conducting the actual data collection process. " Please also add this information to your ethics statement in the online submission form. 4. Please include additional information regarding the surveys or questionnaires used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaires as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include copies, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. 5. Please report all of your actual numerical p-values in Table 4. 6. Thank you for stating the following after the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 'Funding This study was funded by University of Gondar. However, the funder had no role in data collection, preparation of manuscript, and decision to publish.' We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. a. 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Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors, follow reviewers suggestion to improve your article [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: No ****** 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 is an interesting manuscript on Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures in Ethiopia. Below are some comments to help strengthen the manuscript 1. Please carefully check English language usage. There are many typos in the discussion section. 2. Keywords consider replacing " Associated factors" BACKGROUND Paragraph 1 3. Consider expanding "respiratory illness" 4. "31 December 2019", please carefully check the date and add a reference. Current literature suggests an earlier date. 5. symptoms add loss of taste and a reference Paragraph 2 6. "...protect vulnerable groups from infection" add a reference Paragraph 3 7. "...remain the problem" consider also messages from the government 8. "unfavorable behaviors" consider rephrasing Paragraph 4 9. "In Ethiopia, there is an increasing number of COVID-19" and later "the risk of COVID-19 becomes high" please quantify both indicating trends not a single time measurement METHODS Paragraph 1 10. "The city is .. (Ethiopia)" omit or phrase to describe the population of Gondor in terms of demographics possibly Ethiopia 11. Figure 1 title needs more details setting and year Sample size calculation 12. Define Kebele Adherence towards Covid-19 measures 13. Define the score before discussing it Risk perceptions towards Covid-19 14. Move the information from this paragraph to a figure or table to aid the readers understanding Quality assurance mechanisms 15. Specifically outline which modifications were made RESULTS 16. Table 1 and Table 2 identical please omit one or replace with the correct table 17. Table 3 add description of how overall compliance was calculated below the table DISCUSSION 18. Add month and year to last sentence in paragraph 1 19. Avoid uncommon abbreviations such as HCW, spell out. 20. Add strengths of the study to balance the limitations listed Reviewer #2: The manuscript overall appears to be technically sound and statistical analysis is only partly sound due to Attitude and Risk Perception being poorly described while both statistical analysis and the related results are uniterpretable to the reader; Tables 1 and 2 inexplicably are identical. Also for those reasons, some components of the conclusions appear indirect and subjective. A major drawback is that standard English is sorely lacking, evidenced numerous times in virtually every paragraph with the exception of Study variables, Data collection,Statistical analysis and Assurance mechanism sections. 'Adherence towards, with, to' are used interchangeably; only one of them is correct. There are surprising spelling errors that are typically easily fixable. These unusual errors suggest that none of the over 2 dozen co-authors reviewed the manuscript for submission eligibility. See also below in 'Confidential to Editor' section ****** 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. 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Revision 1
29 Oct 2020 Author Response Editor Comments Dear Dr. Azene, 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 30 October. 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 Author’s reflection: Thank you for the suggestion. We have corrected accordingly in the revised manuscript. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Authors’ response: Thank you for asking to ensure that our manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. We have gone through the formatting requirements and checked that it conforms the required styles. 2. In your Methods section, please provide additional information about the participant recruitment method and the demographic details of your participants. Please ensure you have provided sufficient details to replicate the analyses such as: a) a statement as to whether your sample can be considered representative of a larger population, and Authors’ responses: Thank you for this valuable inquiry. We have included additional information about participant recruitment and demographic details of our participants b) a description of how participants were recruited Authors’ responses: We had included that “The selected Ketena/s were considered as cluster and all households in the selected Ketena were included. Either parents in the household was interviewed or one family member age above 18 year was the respondent in the household whenever the parents were not available at the time of data collection”. We have added that either of the parents were selected by lottery method and a family member older than 18 years selected by lottery method responded whenever both of the parents were absent. 3. Thank you for stating in the text of your manuscript "Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of University of Gondar and an official permission letter was gained from the city administrative office. Written informed consent was obtained from each participant before conducting the actual data collection process. " Please also add this information to your ethics statement in the online submission form. Authors’ responses: Thank you for this query. We have added the ethics statement in the online. 4. Please include additional information regarding the surveys or questionnaires used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaires as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include copies, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. Authors’ responses: Thank you for this comment. We have annexed the English version questionnaire in the revised manuscript. 5. Please report all of your actual numerical p-values in Table 4. Authors’ responses: Thank you for this comment. We have included the actual p-values as requested. 6. Thank you for stating the following after the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 'Funding This study was funded by University of Gondar. However, the funder had no role in data collection, preparation of manuscript, and decision to publish.' We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. a. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 'The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.' b. Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Authors’ response: Thank you for this question. We have removed funding-related text from the manuscript. Kindly include the following statement “This study was funded by University of Gondar. However, the funder had no role in data collection, preparation of manuscript, and decision to publish.” In the online submission form. We have also amended statements in our cover letter. 7. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contains map images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. We require you to either (a) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figure specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (b) remove the figure from your submission: a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 1 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text: “I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.” Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an "Other" file with your submission. In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].” b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figure under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only. The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful: USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/ Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/ USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/# Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ Authors’ response: Thank you for this question. We have removed figure 1 from the manuscript. 8. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. Author’s reflection: Thank you for pointing this important suggestion out and we have included the ethics statement in the method section of the manuscript as stated by the editor. Reviewer #1: This is an interesting manuscript on Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures in Ethiopia. Authors’ response: Thank you for the compliment. Below are some comments to help strengthen the manuscript 1. Please carefully check English language usage. There are many typos in the discussion section. Authors’ responses: Thank you, we have gone through the manuscript word for word and corrected the typos errors. 2. Keywords consider replacing “Associated factors" Authors’ response: Accepted the comment and we changed it. BACKGROUND Paragraph 1 3. Consider expanding "respiratory illness" Authors’ response: Thank you very much for the comments and we have expanded it as suggested. 4. "31 December 2019", please carefully check the date and add a reference. Current literature suggests an earlier date. Authors’ responses: Thank you for this comment we have checked and changed it. 5. Symptoms add loss of taste and a reference Authors’ response: We have added loss of taste and included a reference as suggested. Paragraph 2 6. "...protect vulnerable groups from infection" add a reference Authors’ response: Thank you we have added a reference Paragraph 3 7. "...remain the problem" consider also messages from the government Authors’ response: Thank you we have added lack of government concern as well 8. "Unfavorable behaviors" consider rephrasing Authors’ response: We have rephrased it. 9. "In Ethiopia, there is an increasing number of COVID-19" and later "the risk of COVID-19 becomes high" please quantify both indicating trends not a single time measurement Authors’ response: Thank you we have included trends of COVID-19 in Ethiopia METHODS Paragraph1 10. "The city is. (Ethiopia)" omit or phrase to describe the population of Gondor in terms of demographics possibly Ethiopia Authors’ response: Thank you, we changed it. 11. Figure 1 title needs more details setting and year Authors’ response: We removed the figure as per the editor comment Sample size calculation 12. Define Kebele Authors’ response: Thank you, kebele is the smallest administrative unit in the country (Ethiopia) and we have included this in the revised manuscript. Adherence towards Covid-19 measures 13. Define the score before discussing it Authors’ response: Thank you, we have included the total score and the median score in the revised manuscript. Risk perceptions towards Covid-19 14. Move the information from this paragraph to a figure or table to aid the readers understanding Authors’ response: Thank you for the comment and we have included the information in the table as suggested. However, we authors believe that stating the way how risk perception towards COVID-19 infection was measured over the operational definition section is vital and we have done it besides moving the information to the table. Quality assurance mechanisms 15. Specifically outline which modifications were made Authors’ response: Thank you, the modifications done were such as wording, changing terms, rephrasing for better understanding, deleting and adding some information for clarity. RESULTS 16. Table 1 and Table 2 identical please omit one or replace with the correct table Authors’ response: Thank you very much we have removed the redundant table as suggested. We changed it. 17. Table 3 add description of how overall compliance was calculated below the table Authors’ response: Thank you very much we have added how the overall compliance was calculated as a foot note in the same table in the revised manuscript. DISCUSSION 18. Add month and year to last sentence in paragraph 1 Authors’ response: Thank you we have added it as suggested. 19. Avoid uncommon abbreviations such as HCW, spell out. Authors’ response: Thank you for the issue raised and we have corrected it accordingly. 20. Add strengths of the study to balance the limitations listed Authors’ response: We thank you the reviewer for reminding us to add this point and we have incorporated in the revised manuscript. Reviewer #2: The manuscript overall appears to be technically sound and statistical analysis is only partly sound due to Attitude and Risk Perception being poorly described while both statistical analysis and the related results are uninterpretable to the reader; Tables 1 and 2 inexplicably are identical. Also for those reasons, some components of the conclusions appear indirect and subjective. Authors’ response: Thank you for these invaluable comments. We have described attitude and risk perception in more details in the revised manuscript and we have replaced table 2 as it was wrongly inserted. We tried to make the conclusion more objective and direct. A major drawback is that Standard English is sorely lacking, evidenced numerous times in virtually every paragraph with the exception of Study variables, Data collection, Statistical analysis and Assurance mechanism sections. 'Adherence towards, with, to' are used interchangeably; only one of them is correct. There are surprising spelling errors that are typically easily fixable. These unusual errors suggest that none of the over 2 dozen co-authors reviewed the manuscript for submission eligibility. See also below in 'Confidential to Editor' section Authors’ response: Thank you for this comment, we have gone through the manuscript and meticulously revised in the current submission. The end Thank you so much again Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244265.r002
8 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Francesco Di Gennaro, Editor Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures and its associated factors among Gondar City residents: a community-based cross-sectional study in northwest Ethiopia PONE-D-20-27576R1 Dear Dr. Zelalem Nigussie Azene 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. 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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: (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 Reviewer #2: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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) ****** 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 ****** 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: The authors have adequately addressed all the comments and suggestions made based on the initial submission. Reviewer #2: The authors' responded that they "have gone through the manuscript and meticulously revised the current submission" in answer to comments by the reviewers regarding the English language usage. However, this submission still falls short of the standard of English that is suitable for a formal international journal article readership in the opinion of this reviewer. The errors in syntax can be found in virtually all sections of the manuscript, including the statement in the last sentence of the conclusion. Given that I find it so tedious to fully understand the ideas and intensions that the authors wish to convey, my opinion is to reject the manuscript for publication on that basis. ****** 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 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244265.r003
Formally Accepted
18 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Francesco Di Gennaro, Editor PONE-D-20-27576R1 Adherence towards COVID-19 mitigation measures and its associated factors among Gondar City residents: a community-based cross-sectional study in Northwest Ethiopia Dear Dr. Azene: 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. Francesco Di Gennaro Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244265.r004

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