Psychometric properties of the brief self-report questionnaire for screening putative pre-psychotic states and validation of clinical utility in young adult

Shih-Kuang Chiang; Pei-Ti Chen; Chen-Chung Liu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0251915

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 31, 2020
13 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Paola Gremigni, Editor PONE-D-20-34283 Psychometric properties of the brief self-report questionnaire for screening putative pre-psychotic states and validation of clinical utility in young adult PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chiang, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit; indeed, both the Reviewers and myself have considered your study of interest for its clinical implications. However, it 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 May 28 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. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that Table 1 may include questionnaire items that may have been previously published. The reproduction of previously published work has implications for the copyright that may apply to these publications. We would be grateful if you could clarify whether you have obtained permission from the original copyright holder to republish these items under a CC BY license. If you have not obtained permission to publish these items please remove them from your manuscript. You may wish to replace the text you have removed with relevant question numbers/ brief descriptions of each item; please be sure to include any relevant references and in-text citations. 3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: 1) Please, use "construct validity" instead of "constructive validity". 2) Please, use "components" instead of "factors" as you run PCA not EFA. 3) Please, do not say that factor loadings were significant, as you did not report their p values. Usually, we retain an item based on a pre-established cut-point (e.g. >.30 or >. 40) not based on statistical significance. 4) In the Discussion, a mention of your study limitations is missing; therefore, please, add this part. [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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes 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: 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: Identification of psychosis in the early stage is very much fruitful regarding the clinical outcome. So, this study is a good effort to meet the burning issue. The study was found well organized, used various appropriate statistical analysis tools, and was well written. I would like to provide some minor suggestions- 1)The full form of ROC should be mentioned at the beginning 2)Psychometric properties of all Chinese versions should be specifically mentioned (Cronbach’s alpha etc.) 3)The statistical part seemed perfect from my point of view, but require further scrutiny by other experts. Reviewer #2: I understand that this study was performed to validate the psychometric properties of the BQSPS by comparing the results with 2 other previous studies which had the same objective yet a distinctively different population.. The main objective of the study was feasible and interesting yet in the execution I found myself to be lost .. As the author compared some other studies which used different scales and although the comparisons might be richer this way ..the main objective is lost in the way and the discussion section became overcrowded and confusing.. focusing on the author’s main objective can make the reader more interested in the results. Table 1 is not well organized, some points are affirmatives others are questions. Table 2& 3 are better to follow the same items sequence not to have the reader confused . Finally, the manuscript should be reviewed by a native English speaker for the quality of language. ****** 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: Yes:** Panchanan Acharjee 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251915.r001
Revision 1
28 Apr 2021 Author Response To academic editor 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Answer: We had checked and confirmed that our manuscript meets PLOS ONE’s style requirements. 2. We note that Table 1 may include questionnaire items that may have been previously published. The reproduction of previously published work has implications for the copyright that may apply to these publications. We would be grateful if you could clarify whether you have obtained permission from the original copyright holder to republish these items under a CC BY license. If you have not obtained permission to publish these items please remove them from your manuscript. You may wish to replace the text you have removed with relevant question numbers/ brief descriptions of each item; please be sure to include any relevant references and in-text citations. Answer: The third author of this manuscript is the original copyright holder of the BQSPS. Without any doubt, we got his permission before this study began. We also clarify this in the manuscript. 3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. Answer: We do not change our Data Availability statement. However, we changed our data sharing method from providing a DOI number into providing Supporting information files in this study. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Answer: We did not cite any articles that have been retracted. For answering the third point of additional editor comments, we add a new citation, “Tabachnick BG, Fidell LS. Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon; 2007”. Additional Editor Comments: 1) Please, use "construct validity" instead of "constructive validity". 2) Please, use "components" instead of "factors" as you run PCA not EFA. 3) Please, do not say that factor loadings were significant, as you did not report their p values. Usually, we retain an item based on a pre-established cut-point (e.g. >.30 or >. 40) not based on statistical significance. 4) In the Discussion, a mention of your study limitations is missing; therefore, please, add this part. Answer: We have revised these minor issues in the manuscript accordingly. To reviewer 1 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 Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1:Yes Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 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 Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 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 Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 5. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: Identification of psychosis in the early stage is very much fruitful regarding the clinical outcome. So, this study is a good effort to meet the burning issue. The study was found well organized, used various appropriate statistical analysis tools, and was well written. I would like to provide some minor suggestions- 1)The full form of ROC should be mentioned at the beginning 2)Psychometric properties of all Chinese versions should be specifically mentioned (Cronbach’s alpha etc.) 3)The statistical part seemed perfect from my point of view, but require further scrutiny by other experts. Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. For suggestions #1 and #2, we have revised these minor issues in the manuscript accordingly. We also expected to get a critical suggestion about suggestion 3. 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:Yes: Panchanan Acharjee Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. To reviewer 2 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 #2:Yes Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2:Yes Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 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 #2:Yes Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. 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 #2:No Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. An experienced academic native English speaker edited the paper. 5. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #2: I understand that this study was performed to validate the psychometric properties of the BQSPS by comparing the results with 2 other previous studies which had the same objective yet a distinctively different population.. The main objective of the study was feasible and interesting yet in the execution I found myself to be lost .. As the author compared some other studies which used different scales and although the comparisons might be richer this way ..the main objective is lost in the way and the discussion section became overcrowded and confusing.. focusing on the author’s main objective can make the reader more interested in the results. Table 1 is not well organized, some points are affirmatives others are questions. Table 2& 3 are better to follow the same items sequence not to have the reader confused . Finally, the manuscript should be reviewed by a native English speaker for the quality of language. Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. We had added some sentences to make the paragraph more clear for the readers. Besides, an experienced academic native English speaker edited the paper. 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 #2:No Answer: Thank the reviewer's comment. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response t Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251915.r002
6 May 2021 Decision Letter - Paola Gremigni, Editor Psychometric properties of the brief self-report questionnaire for screening putative pre-psychotic states and validation of clinical utility in young adult PONE-D-20-34283R1 Dear Dr. Chiang, 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, Paola Gremigni, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): The Authors answered adequately the minor concerns expressed by the reviewers and the academic editor. The statistical approach is appropriate. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251915.r003
Formally Accepted
8 Jun 2021 Acceptance Letter - Paola Gremigni, Editor PONE-D-20-34283R1 Psychometric properties of the brief self-report questionnaire for screening putative pre-psychotic states and validation of clinical utility in young adult Dear Dr. Chiang: 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. Paola Gremigni Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251915.r004

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