https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5245-1653
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionJuly 9, 2020 |
|---|
|
PONE-D-20-21244 Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: a Web-based survey PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nagasu, 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 two reviewers addressed several major and minor concerns about your manuscript. Please revise your manuscript carefully. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 10 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:
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, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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 2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-8022-4 In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed. 3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. 4. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ [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: No ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: No ********** 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: 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: The authors aimed to clarify the prevalence of psychological distress and determine the most affected population by risk factors such as the pandemic, socioeconomic status (SES) and lifestyle-related factors with psychological distress in the early phases of the pandemic in Japan. The strength of the study is its use of timely data from a large number of respondents. (Prevalence of psychological distress and the association of the pandemic-, SES-, and lifestyle-related factors with mental health outcomes among Japanese samples of over 10,000 respondents.) This study is interesting, however I have a few suggestions. #1: The authors asked the medical history of the participants and noted whether the participant visits the hospital regularly. Could you tell me the department in the field of medical care? (This may affect the results.) #2: Would you tell me more data of the method of sampling? The authors should follow the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) to minimize the potential bias. Reviewer #2: The author attempted to reveal the influence of socio-economic status on psychiatric burden with COVID-19. The purpose of this study is acceptable. However, there are several flaws in this paper both in the methodology and interpretation of the results. First of all, it is doubtful that the results of this study reflect the influence of COVID-19. As the author mentions, SES, gender, some lifestyles have been proved to be associated with psychiatric distress. Then, the differences between participants with high distress (K6>=5) and others can be seen before COVID-19 pandemic. Younger people are anxious than elders before the pandemic due to their financial discrepancy, aren't they? Why does the author believe the outcomes of this study were brought from the current pandemic? Are there similar studies before pandemic to compare their data with the present study's quantitatively? In the introductory section, the author suggests the possibility that COVID-19 would raise suicide rate in Japan. At present, this estimation has not been realized: suicide rate in the 2020 spring in Japan is significantly low compared to those in the past years. As well, the influence of changed lifestyles is controversial. Some clinicians comment avoiding to go to the office is advantageous for workers who feel stressful in the interpersonal relationship. There may be complicated issues around this phenomenon. In the method section, there are also many queries. The author is encouraged to disclose the whole questionnaire sheet as a supplementary file. The method of implementation of the survey should be disclosed in detail. Were the participants rewarded? Was duplicated answering effectively excluded? How did the author exclude the answers by non-serious respondents? The author should adhere to the guidelines of web-based survey such as CHERRIES. Relevant information should be disclosed. Why did the author exclude people over 65 y.o. from the study? Aging is one of the biggest issues in Japanese society. I hardly understand why the author omitted elder people's opinions. How did the author calculate the sample size? Are ten thousands enough to prove the author's hypothesis? How did the author set the threshold of disposable income without tax as 2m and 6m JPY? The author took a series of questionnaire regarding the pandemic-related factors. Some of the items are positively associated with the psychological distress with statistical analysis. However, the results should be cautiously interpreted. To begin with, each item describes a pattern of anxiety. Thus, high score of the questionnaire can be conceptually equal to high score of K6. Sub-scaling seems arbitrarily developed by the author. It may be not appropriate that the answer of "not applicable" is deemed as not worried. Relationship between items can be complicated. (i.e. participants with no kids never worry about their children's education. But they were likely to unmarried, thus can be more anxious.) Considering several issues mentioned above, I do not recommend the author to include these items into independent valuables in the binary logistic regression analysis. Particularly, the question "inability to receive a PCR test immediately" seems problematic. Does the author believe PCR test should be provided to everyone who want to do immediately? There are arguments even among specialists in this theme. PCR can neither provide 100% sensitivity nor specificity. If massive people take the test, there will be many false negative persons, leading to make them super-spreaders. In my sense, many of the participants who answered this question "yes" lack adequate knowledge of medical examination. In the discussion section, there are some mentioning which are hardly accepted generally. The author wrote women might be more susceptible to stress than men and would tend to develop mental illness. Are there some evidences to support this statement? Indeed, some kinds of mental illness such as depression is more common in women. But suicide rate is much higher in men. A common interpretation is that women are likely to express their distress to others as well as call for help. If so, men should be cared with more intensity. On the other hand, women with children can be more anxious for their children's health and education. In this sense, the author's conclusion that mental health interventions and treatments for women is needed is not acceptable completely. The hypothesis that young people watching SNS and news programs become anxious is not supported by this study. The author did not ask the frequency of access to SNS. Considering that this study was web-based, elder participants can also be accustomed to social network. In addition, people over 65 y.o. did not participate in this study. The sentences "These results imply that the cause was the dissemination of information that the mortality rate of people who go to a hospital regularly for curing chronic disease was high. It is essential to examine the type of chronic diseases that led to a high mortality rate due to COVID-19." does not make sense. Did the author asked the worry about fatality when infected by COVID-19? Simply, people with chronic diseases are likely to be depressed, rich evidence suggests. The sentences "Up until now, Japan has been less affected by infectious diseases; hence, Japanese people have higher anxiety against the COVID-19." is also hardly understandable. What did the author compare Japanese people with? Is it true that "groceries are not easily available" in the pandemic situation? Are Japanese suffering from starvation? The sentences "It is considered that women who carry most of the household chores including shopping and daily life activities in Japan, particularly those who are regularly employed, were greatly affected by the fact that they could not purchase groceries and their working styles changed due to the pandemic." is meaningless. Were single men with regular employment not affected? Did the author confirmed that most married female participant were responsible for daily purchasing? It is no doubt that healthy lifestyles are beneficial for better mental health. The description in the line 355 - 366 is merely repeating it, not deducting novel findings from the result of this study. The sentence "Presumably, the person who did not exercise had better psychological effects." is no more than imaginary idea by the author, I have to say, because the author asked the participants about neither frequency of the media exposure nor utilizing a gym. In the conclusion section, I cannot agree with some descriptions for the reasons mentioned above. I do not believe "providing accurate information the type of chronic diseases with high fatality rate in people" will relieve people with chronic diseases from distress. (In my personal sense, guaranteeing adequate medical care as well as not pandemic regardless of the social situation is the most important for them, because many of them were required to refrain from, or reluctant to, visiting hospital, for the fear of infection, or simply rack of medical resources.) As mentioned above, I think "allowing people to undertake the PCR test" is not appropriate definitely, whereas establishment of proper inspection strategy is needed. Above all, this study protocol cannot be well developed. Also, the author's interpretation of the results are partially biased. Generally speaking, I cannot admit this study as qualified. Nonetheless, the data relevant with COVID-19 pandemic can be valuable, considering the current confusing situation. I strongly recommend the author to reconsider the whole manuscript, with disclosing methods in detail, cutting biased interpretations, to make it usable for researchers in the future. ********** 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: Akihiro Shiina [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 1 |
|
PONE-D-20-21244R1 Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nagasu, 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 reviewer #2 did not satisfy the response to the comments. Please revise your manuscript again. We may need another reviewer to make the final decision for your revised manuscript. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 09 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:
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, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD Academic 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 #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: No ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know 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 ********** 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: Thank you for your polite reply. 1. #1: The authors asked the medical history of the participants and noted whether the participant visits the hospital regularly. Could you tell me the department in the field of medical care? (This may affect the results.) Response: Thank you for this question. Unfortunately, we did not ask which department the participants regularly visit in this study. ＝＞ Thank you for your polite answer. 2. #2: Would you tell me more data of the method of sampling? The authors should follow the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES) to minimize the potential bias. Response: Thank you for your recommendation. We followed the CHERRIES and added detailed information to the Methods section as much as possible. Please refer to the Methods section. => Thank you for your polite reply. Reviewer #2: The author has properly amended the description of the original manuscript in almost all areas with argument. However, I never understand why the author claims that "people demand receiving the PCR test as a human right as a Japanese citizen." To begin with, the author themselves wrote they don't believe PCR test should be provided to everyone who want to do immediately in the former section of the response letter. Their comments are quite paradoxical. I am doubtful that the author understand the sensibility and specificity of an examination. The current sensitivity of PCR is estimated as 70%. Regarding specificity, there is controversy, estimated between 99% to 99.99%. Even if the specificity is 99.999%, ten people of a million without COVID-19 will receive false positive, leading to unnecessary seclusion and wasting medical resource. False negative case can be more serious. Discussing providing PCR alone is quite risky and unrealistic. Again, I have to say that the outcome of the present survey does not support the idea that allowing any people to undertake the PCR test is appropriate. It is an issue of public health, not human right. Human right is an essential matter which should never been violated. It is far from protecting human right to justify things the majority wants to do. If the vast majority of Japanese support racism, should the Japanese government take such a policy? Ridiculous. As far as the author use the term "human right" in an arbitrary manner, the author's manuscript does not deserve to be read. ********** 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: Yes: Akihiro Shiina [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 |
|
PONE-D-20-21244R2 Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nagasu, 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. Additional reviewer #3 addressed several minor concerns about your manuscript. Pleaser revise your manuscript again. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 25 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:
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, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD Academic 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 #3: (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 #3: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: (No Response) ********** 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 #3: No ********** 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 #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 #3: Thank you for giving me a chance to review this manuscript. I confirmed the authors have already amended the questions from the other reviewers in the previous rounds. The paper now is well written and has scientific meaning. Therefore, I suggest its acceptance after fixing several points below. Major: 1. I can understand that the authors changed the expressions of “PCR tests” to “COVID-19 tests” to answer previous reviewer 2’s question. However, I think it is not acceptable to change the questionnaire after it has been answered. Because if we ask a question in another way, the response may be different. Authors may add some explanation about “PCR tests here were the only tests for COVID-19 at that time.” However, I do not think it is acceptable to change the original question. 2. Supplemental data for all the response data were not included in this revision, while PLOS ONE asked authors to upload their data somewhere. I found the data in revision R1. I did not know why authors deleted them. Minor points: 3. P.17 L.229 Regular employees among females (AOR 1.125 …) While in Table 3 (P.20), it is “Non regular” employee (AOR “1.215”). Please confirm both the label and the number, and fix either one. 4. P.17 L.230-232 there are typos. Shouldn't all “≥ 6 million” be “< 6 million?” (according to Table 3.) 5. P.20 Table 3 Some names of rows were difficult to be understood and different from the questionnaire, e.g., “What I may be infected with the virus,” “What may affect my family.” 6. P.22 L.326 “Three previous studies in China and Turkey also reported that Chinese female …” The study from Turkey (ref. 6) should not report Chinese results. Therefore, please remove “Chinese” here. 7. P. 22-23 “Previous research concluded that females were at a higher risk of mental health problems than men (31).” Ref. 31 is a paper on post-injury mental health problems. It seems to be a particular case and a little far from the current results. Could the authors revise this part? Also, in the following sentence, “these three previous studies” is written. It is better to remove “three,” if the authors mention both Ref 15 and 31, together with Ref 3, 6, and 30. 8. P. 28 L.430 “using a PC device” via the internet. To my knowledge, such kind of survey can also be answered by smartphones. If so, please remove using a PC device or add some other means to make it clear. ********** 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 #3: Yes: Yu-Shi Tian [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 |
|
PONE-D-20-21244R3 Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nagasu, 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 reviewer addressed two minor concerns about your manuscript. Please send me the revised manuscript ASAP. I will make the final decision (accept) without peer review. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 27 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:
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, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD Academic 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 #3: 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 #3: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: 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 #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 #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 #3: Dear editor and authors, Thank you for giving me a chance to reconfirm this manuscript: “Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey.” It is very interesting and meaningful to understand the citizens’ mental health in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The data are sampled per the Japanese population and have a sufficient number of respondents to give the results and conclusion. I have reconfirmed the revision of this manuscript, and most of the questions have been answered. Although two minor points are listed below, I think they can be fixed during the publication steps. Therefore, now, I advise the publication of this manuscript in PLOS ONE. Minor points: 1. P. 17 L. 229 “such as regular employees among females…” Shouldn’t it be non-regular employees? According to Table 3, regular employees are the reference. The odds ratio is non-regular employees/regular employees. 2. P. 8 L.136 “Have you been worried the following items …” “about” should be added after “worried” for English grammar. ********** 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 #3: Yes: Yu-Shi Tian [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 4 |
|
Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey PONE-D-20-21244R4 Dear Dr. Nagasu, 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. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. 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. Kind regards, Kenji Hashimoto, PhD Section Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
|
PONE-D-20-21244R4 Impacts of anxiety and socioeconomic factors on mental health in the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the general population in Japan: A web-based survey Dear Dr. Nagasu: 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 Prof. Kenji Hashimoto Section Editor PLOS ONE |
Open letter on the publication of peer review reports
PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.
We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.
Learn more at ASAPbio .