PONE-D-20-40617

Adherence to COVID-19 Policy Measures:

Behavioral Insights from The Netherlands and Belgium

PLOS ONE

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Amir H. Pakpour, Ph.D.

Academic 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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

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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: The study entitled “Adherence to COVID-19 Policy Measures: Behavioral Insights from The Netherlands and Belgium” investigated the individual variation in adhering the behavioral recommendations made by the government during the COVID-19 pandemic. The roles of motivations, beliefs and pre-pandemic behavior in the policy response were evaluated. The findings indicate that the citizens in Netherlands and those in Belgium had different attitudes and behaviors reacting to the COVID-19. Therefore, the authors suggested that it is not recommended to adopt “one-size-fits-all” policy strategies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. The manuscript tackles an important and timely research question with the following strengths: (1) a large sample size; (2) cross-country comparison; and (3) rigorous statistical methods. However, several issues should be remediated before I recommend publication. Please see my specific comments below.

1. The Abstract is not in a good shape. I think that Plos One allows much more words than the current presented Abstract. The authors are thus needed to provide more details and findings (with statistical values) in the Abstract. I would also prefer to see a structured Abstract as this is clear for readers to have a full picture in the beginning of reading this paper.

2. The authors do not review the literature thoroughly. Specifically, many papers on policy, behaviors, and associated factors during COVID-19 pandemic have been published. Therefore, the authors should take references from them. Below are some of my suggestions for the authors to use and strengthen their literature review.

Olatunji OS, Ayandele O, Ashirudeen D, Olaniru OS. “Infodemic” in a pandemic: COVID-19 conspiracy theories in an african country. Soc Health Behav 2020;3:152-7

Lin MW, Cheng Y. Policy actions to alleviate psychosocial impacts of COVID-19 pandemic: Experiences from Taiwan. Soc Health Behav 2020;3:72-3

Rieger MO. To wear or not to wear? Factors influencing wearing face masks in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Soc Health Behav 2020;3:50-4

Chang KC, Strong C, Pakpour AH, Griffiths MD, Lin CY. Factors related to preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors among people with mental illness. J Formos Med Assoc. 2020;119(12):1772-1780. doi:10.1016/j.jfma.2020.07.032

Pramukti I, Strong C, Sitthimongkol Y, Setiawan A, Pandin MGR, Yen CF, Lin CY, Griffiths MD, Ko NY. Anxiety and Suicidal Thoughts During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-Country Comparative Study Among Indonesian, Taiwanese, and Thai University Students. J Med Internet Res 2020;22(12):e24487

3. I cannot understand why the authors reported t-values for categorical data on Table 1. Also, the meaning of the asterisks is not provided for Table 1.

4. The meaning of social 10+ is unclear for Tables 2 to 4.

5. The study should have a limitation section to remind the readers, especially I found that the study did not use standardized instruments for assessing all the behaviors (e.g., Chang et al. have validated behavioral instruments during COVID-19). Therefore, it is unclear whether the measures used in the present study are robust.

Chang KC, Hou WL, Pakpour AH, Lin CY, Griffiths MD. Psychometric Testing of Three COVID-19-Related Scales Among People with Mental Illness [published online ahead of print, 2020 Jul 11]. Int J Ment Health Addict. 2020;1-13. doi:10.1007/s11469-020-00361-6

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Reviewer #1: No

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Adherence to COVID-19 Policy Measures:

Behavioral Insights from The Netherlands and Belgium

PONE-D-20-40617R1

Dear Dr. van den Broek-Altenburg,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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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,

Amir H. Pakpour, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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

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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 satisfactorily addressed all my prior comments. I am happy to see this revision and have no more comments.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No