Psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. An online cross-sectional survey

Almamy Amara Touré; Lansana Mady Camara; Aboubacar Sidiki Magassouba; Abdoulaye Doumbouya; Gnoume Camara; Alsény Yarie Camara; Gaspard Loua; Diao Cissé; Mohamed Sylla; Alpha Oumar Bereté; Abdoul Habib Beavogui

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0245751

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 14, 2020
24 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Akihiro Nishi, Editor PONE-D-20-19796 Psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. An Online cross-sectional survey. PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Almamy Amara Touré, 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 Feb 1 2021. 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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We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. 4. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure. 5. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Please follow the two reviewers' comments and submit the revised one. [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: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No 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: No 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: This paper explores the psychological effects of COVID-19 on the population of Guinea. The topic is interesting and worth of investigation. However, parts of the analysis can be improved. In addition, the presentation and typography of the paper could use further refinement. Some suggestions to improve the paper are as follows: Major - I would suggest a comparison of the results presented in the paper with pre-pandemic data on stress levels in the Guinea population to see how/if stress levels have risen following the pandemic. - I suggest enlisting the help of a scientific technical writer who is familiar with the field Minor - In Figure 4, I would suggest using a more noticeable color for "Strongly Agree" as it is difficult to see the respective bar upon first glance Reviewer #2: This is a cross-sectional study of the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. It recruited via social media and had a study population of 275 people. The response for the psychological measures were lower at 56% and two thirds (should give the n and % for both questionnaires rather than 2/3). My main concerns with this study are sample size and whether the study population is representative of the Guinean population or are significantly biased. An internet search gives estimates of average number of Facebook friends worldwide as 338 with a median of 200 (brandwatch.com). I would worry that with a sample size of 275 this could be a particularly restricted social group. How were internet users identified to receive the survey link - was this based on targeted demographics via advertisement or via peers/social contacts of the researchers? It would be good to have an idea of how typical this sample is in terms of demographics compared with the general population of Guinea. There is a high level of university education in the unemployed group and I wonder how typical that would be in general or if this is a particularly vulnerable group in a pandemic. The manuscript is mostly well written although there are some problems with tenses and some typographical errors eg - abstract: methods: 'we did an online cross-sectional survey among people' - could change to "we carried out an online cross-sectional study amongst internet users in Guinea" - introduction - take out 'the' before global health, distanciation is referred to more commonly as "social distancing", capital city was (not were) isolated, first time to face more usually "first time facing", 2interested in to" could b e "aimed to" ****** 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: 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. 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Revision 1
8 Dec 2020 Author Response 2020/12/07 Dear Akihiro Nishi, M.D, Dr P.H. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Subject: Submission of revised paper PONE-D-20-19796 (manuscript ID number that the journal assigned). Dear Dr Nishi, First of all, we would like to thank you for your email of November 24th, 2020, and the opportunity to resubmit the revised version of our manuscript. We appreciate the time and effort that you and the reviewers dedicated to providing feedback on our manuscript and are grateful for your insightful and valuable comments on our paper. We have incorporated the suggestions made by the reviewers. Our responses are given in a point-by-point manner in italic font. Changes to the manuscript are highlighted in yellow font. In this revised version of the manuscript, we did our best to address all comments made by the Reviewers. We hope that the Reviewers and the Editors will be satisfied with our responses to their "comments". Sincerely yours, Almamy Amara TOURE Head of monitoring/Evaluation unit National Centre for Training and Research in Rural Health of Maferinyah, Forecariah, Guinea. On behalf of the authors Reviewer #1: This paper explores the psychological effects of COVID-19 on the population of Guinea. The topic is interesting and worth of investigation. However, parts of the analysis can be improved. In addition, the presentation and typography of the paper could use further refinement. Some suggestions to improve the paper are as follows: Major - I would suggest a comparison of the results presented in the paper with pre-pandemic data on stress levels in the Guinea population to see how/if stress levels have risen following the pandemic. - I suggest enlisting the help of a scientific technical writer who is familiar with the field Response Thank you for having raised that question; we believe it was worth to be mentioned. For the records, our country (Guinea) has been facing a couple of health crises such as cholera, meningitis, Ebola, and now COVID-19. Before undertaking this study, we did an in-depth review of the literature to look at what has been done. Unfortunately, we found no specific information about psychosocial impact in the Guinea general population during the pre epidemic or pandemic period in Guinea. However, to reply to your thoughtful remark, we inserted in the discussion section as follow: “Traumatic events of this study dovetail with the pre-pandemic situation. For instance, a study on Ebola survivors reported 15% of post-traumatic stress disorder revealing the outbreak effects[]. Similarly,another finding revealed that bank employees stressed at different levels (very low stress=50.47%,stress down=44.43% ,high stress=5.09%).” (page 12, from line 8 to 11). Minor - In Figure 4, I would suggest using a more noticeable color for "Strongly Agree" as it is difficult to see the respective bar upon first glance. Response Thank you for this observation We changed colour for the label "Strongly Agree", you can notice in the manuscript (page number 12). Reviewer #2: This is a cross-sectional study of the psychosocial impact of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. It recruited via social media and had a study population of 275 people. The response for the psychological measures were lower at 56% and two thirds (should give the n and % for both questionnaires rather than 2/3). Response Thank you for this remark We gave the n and % in the appropriate place. My main concerns with this study are sample size and whether the study population is representative of the Guinean population or are significantly biased. An internet search gives estimates of average number of Facebook friends worldwide as 338 with a median of 200 (brandwatch.com). I would worry that with a sample size of 275 this could be a particularly restricted social group. How were internet users identified to receive the survey link - was this based on targeted demographics via advertisement or via peers/social contacts of the researchers? It would be good to have an idea of how typical this sample is in terms of demographics compared with the general population of Guinea. There is a high level of university education in the unemployed group and I wonder how typical that would be in general or if this is a particularly vulnerable group in a pandemic. Response Thank you for your comments; this is an interesting observation. As we have mentioned in the manuscript, participants came from everywhere as shows in this statement "A free online e-survey ( https://esurv.org ) platform was used to send questionnaires to the internet users, they were encouraged to pass it to each other through social media (Facebook, WhatsApp, messenger) by using snowball sampling". Each author sent a questionnaire through groups of social media organize not only the researcher, and then they were encouraged to pass it to each other. Of note that we recoded the variable profession so that it can be more readable; for we noticed more than 100 categories socio-professionals accounting for all potential users of the Internet in Guinea. Another reason to consider our sample not representative of our entire population is based on the fact that not everyone uses the Internet in Guinea. Even among the literate people, Internet use is minimal. Besides, the spreading of the internet is relatively new (less than 10 years) in Guinea. Dear reviewer to address your concerns, we added more explanations in the description of the study population in the manuscript as follow:" The study population were diverse and came from all the sectors of activities in Guinea, but essentially focused on those who were active in using the internet, for the period of the study was short" (page number 3 from line 4 to 6 ), we also precise the social group that our survey focused on in the discussion section “ Targeting people who are literate and have access to the internet introduces a selection bias in the achievement of the study” (page number13, second paragraph, from line 3 to 4). The manuscript is mostly well written although there are some problems with tenses and some typographical errors eg - abstract: methods: 'we did an online cross-sectional survey among people' - could change to "we carried out an online cross-sectional study amongst internet users in Guinea" - introduction - take out 'the' before global health, distanciation is referred to more commonly as "social distancing", capital city was (not were) isolated, first time to face more usually "first time facing", 2interested in to" could be "aimed to" Response Thank you for this valuable input. We corrected all your observations; -Abstract : methods: we replaced "did" by “carried out” the first line of the section. -Introduction: “the” taken out (page 2 from line 5 to 6) , “distanciation changed” in “social distancing” (introduction, page number 2, second paragraph, line 4), capital city was inserted (introduction, page number 2, second paragraph, line 5), "first time facing" inserted instead of “first time to face” (introduction, page number 2, third paragraph, line 5), "aimed to" inserted instead of “interested in” (introduction, page number 2, last paragraph). Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245751.r002
7 Jan 2021 Decision Letter - Akihiro Nishi, Editor Psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. An online cross-sectional survey. PONE-D-20-19796R1 Dear Dr. Almamy Amara Touré, 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: All comments have been addressed ******** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: 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: (No Response) 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: This is an important and timely topic which adds to the international literature on the impact of COVID-19 in a country that has experienced the trauma of other significant outbreaks of illness. The authors have stated the limitations around sampling more clearly. The standard of written English in the paper has been improved. ****** 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.0245751.r003
Formally Accepted
22 Jan 2021 Acceptance Letter - Akihiro Nishi, Editor PONE-D-20-19796R1 Psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 in the Guinean population. An online cross-sectional survey. Dear Dr. Touré: 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. Akihiro Nishi Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245751.r004

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