PONE-D-19-35873

Does parenting style moderate the relationship between parent-youth sexual risk communication and premarital sexual debut among in-school youth in Eswatini?

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chang,

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 accept my apologies for the misunderstanding regarding the overlap with previous work - I understand now that the previous paper reviewer 2 refers to is a masters thesis, so we are not concerned about this aspect of the manuscript anymore. Please do take a look at the methodological and other points raised by both reviewers when preparing your revised manuscript.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 13 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.

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Dr Joseph Donlan

Staff 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Yes

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: I highly commend the authors for conducting a research study that tests the construct of parenting style as a moderator of the relationship between parent-youth sexual risk communication (PYSRC) and premarital sexual debut. Moreover, results from the study further confirm that the construct of parenting style should be considered within cultural context, with attention given to global variability in application or lack thereof. However, based on Baumrind's conceptualization of parenting styles, I would suggest incorporating the other dimensions of authoritarian and permissive (indulgent, neglectful) in investigating the moderating effects of parenting style given the relationship between parenting practices and child development.

Regarding the introduction, more detail could be given on Darling and Steinberg's contextual model of parenting style; however, Baumrind's conceptualizations of parenting style (1971, 1991) should also be noted as part of the theoretical framework. A more thorough review of literature should be presented, highlighting relevant studies that inform the current research and identify significant gaps.

Concerning the methodology, the sampling procedures seem to lack academic rigor. The use of random drawing from slips of paper appears to be devoid of sophistication worthy of scientific, empirical investigation. Also, more accuracy and detail is needed on the cluster sampling of each grade and the procedure by which individual random sampling is accomplished with each classroom. Two-stage cluster sampling appears to be an appropriate, but accuracy in the application of such a methodological design is lacking. Lastly, you should clarify for the readers what is meant by Form 4 and 5.

For the discussion, in Lines 270, 277, 318 and 351, the names of authors should be mentioned instead of "studies elsewhere" or "other studies."

Regarding grammatical errors, there are some run-on sentences and lack of appropriately placed semicolons. For example, in Lines 59-63, there are run-on sentences and a need to use semicolons for separation. In Lines 63-66 and Lines 345-347, semicolons are also needed to separate long lists.

In Lines 117-118, African-American communities should be placed in parenthesis.

In Line 278, few "had" interactions should be replaced by few "having" interactions.

In Line 337, bias should be used instead of biasness.

Reviewer #2: Review of: Does parenting style moderate the relationship between parent-youth sexual risk communication and premarital sexual debut among in-school youth in Eswatini?

(The paper presents the results of a survey done in 2012. Unfortunately, the paper is very similar to one published in 2013 using the same data which renders the contribution questionable, but more importantly, fails to meet ethical standards. I’m not able to determine the degree of self-plagarism, but at the least, substantial p-hacking appears to have occurred.)

There are other issues, as well. The authors present the findings as related to “parent-youth sexual risk communication”; however, the sample is comprised of individuals ranging in age up to 24, averaging nearly 19. The sample includes adults and adolescents. Because the measure of sex is whether or not they have ever had sex rather than voluntary debut and age of debut, the question of whether a parent has influence has to be considered. At the least, the sample should be divided into minors and adults for comparisons before aggregating but a better approach would have been to do that AND use age of debut as the dv.

The findings indicate that authoritativeness did not predict sexual debut. The choice of how to manage parental style was based on Darling’s treatment of her scale; however, you have the ability to determine whether, based on your sample, that was appropriate. Having used Baumrind’s scales in my own work, there is no limitation of the scale in one-parent households and the collinearity problem seems more likely to be an issue with Darling’s scale but that is something the authors can and should test for themselves.

The authors also have the ability to conduct post-hoc tests regarding whether the mother or father has more or less influence.

The lower PYSRC scores suggest why authoritativeness has little influence and indicate the need to examine that construct cross-culturally. The lower scores also may be the result of the adult population in which this study was conducted (see my earlier concern).

The topic of study is important and I wish I could be more positive about this paper. But I do hope the authors will collect new data and address the issues I have raised regarding cultural differences in parental style, age of debut as the dv, and the like.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Jewrell Rivers

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-19-35873R1

Does parenting style moderate the relationship between parent-youth sexual risk communication and premarital sexual debut among in-school youth in Eswatini?

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chang,

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 Jan 30 2021 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,

Stuart White, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Dr. Chang,

I apologize for the long review process; I have just accepted this assignment and have reviewed all of the materials up to now.

While reviewer 1 was happy with the revisions, reviewer 2 still had substantial concerns. I have read the manuscript and on balance agree with reviewer 1. There are certainly aspects of the study that could be improved, but that is the case for any study. I feel that the data make a contribution to the field and should be made available.

With that being said, reviewer 2 raised a relevant point with respect to age of sexual debut and adults vs. children. Before publication, I would ask for two additional revisions, both of which should be minor.

1. Please show that the adults in the sample are not suppressing an effect of parenting in the younger part of the sample. You do reference stratifying the sample by age on page 13- however, the results of this stratification are insufficiently addressed in the results section. Whether you chose to re-run the analyses excluding older subjects, better describe the results of including age as a stratification variable, or address this issue via other means is up to you, as long as the fundamental question is addressed.

2. Please address the lack of specific age of sexual debut information as a limitation. It seems highly plausible that sexual behavior in the mid-20's is less related to parenting variables than sexual behaviors in teens. We don't know in the current data, among the older participants, how many participants made their sexual debut in adulthood versus in childhood. I don't feel that this is the fatal flaw that reviewer 2 makes it out to be, but it is worth acknowledging.

If you can address these two points succinctly, I am inclined to accept the paper without further review.

Thank you for your submission and your patience.

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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: (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 #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: 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: The author(s) addressed all of the comments in the previous round of review. Upon reviewing the manuscript a second time, I was particularly impressed with the following:

(1) Formulation of problem statement and significance of the study within the cultural context of Sub-Sahara (not addressed by previous studies in the literature)

(2) Indication that the contextual model of parenting style may not apply to all cultures (more relevant to Western culture)

(3) Excellent use of Baumrind (1960) and Maccoby and Martin (1983) conceptualizations of parenting styles in addition to Darling and Steinberg's contextual model to expand the theoretical framework and literature review for the study

(4) Good delineation of significant gaps in the research

(5) Adequate justification for why students were not randomly selected from classrooms for the two-stage stratified cluster sampling technique (e.g., to increase statistical power).

(6) Good negotiation of entry and access to schools and appropriate procedures for informed consent

(7) Good indication of internal reliability for measures

(8) Good justification for measuring one typology of parenting style (e.g., authoritativeness) based on previous studies

(9) Good indication of inconsistencies of measurement and scoring of parenting style throughout the literature as a weakness and/or limitation for current study

(10) Great recommendations and implications for future research based on significant gaps and conflicting findings in the literature

Reviewer #2: In their response to reviewers, they say they “addressed the reviewers’ comments one by one.” A more common and helpful mode of response to reviewers is to actually list the comments and show how you addressed them.

My first comment, once we’re past the self-plagiarism issue, concerned the age of the sample and the assumption that parental communication will have the same effect on adults as it will adolescents. If this was addressed, it must have been by including age as an iv; however, as I also noted, given that 18 is the age of legal sexual consent, age of debut would have been a better variable. There is little discussion of that but the issue for me is more a question of whether this study is needed. The authors must make an argument that PYSRC even occurs between adults and their parents at a rate that would be effectual in influencing behavior. The lack of finding a relationship with PYSR is thus unsurprising.

Age of debut was not discussed. I'd suggest you offer that as a question for future research.

The paper provides a very nice discussion of cultural context. This section was particularly well done.

The decision, then seems to boil down to whether a paper of non-significant findings makes a contribution. In my opinion, given the fundamental question of adults and parental influence, I do not see enough value, I'm sorry to say. Had the dv been age of debut, perhaps, which is a shame because the paper is very well written.

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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: Yes: Jewrell Rivers

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.

Does parenting style moderate the relationship between parent-youth sexual risk communication and premarital sexual debut among in-school youth in Eswatini?

PONE-D-19-35873R2

Dear Dr. Chang,

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.

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Kind regards,

Stuart White, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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