Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of qualitative studies

Luchuo Engelbert Bain; Hubert Amu; Elvis Enowbeyang Tarkang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252745

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 16, 2020
20 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Editor PONE-D-20-10773 Barriers to and motivations for contraceptive use among adolescents and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of qualitative studies PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Luchuo Engelbert Bain, 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. Kindly revise your manuscript taking into cognisance the comments of the reviewers. Please submit your revised manuscript by 15th December, 2020. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Ph.D. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. 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If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4.We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. 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. [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: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: Authors need to go through the PDF document of the manuscript where reviewer comments are included. The objective/question of the review was on three areas but only two of the questions were answered with the review. One question remains to be answered. Reviewer #2: This is a systematic review on Barriers to and motivations for contraceptive use among adolescents and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since low contraceptive usage is a challenge African countries are grabbling with, synthesising knowledge to identify gaps is important for public health. Introduction: Pg3 The age range for young people includes adolescents. So why separate adolescents and young people in your population of interest? Methods: Pg 4 "the reviewers met" does not connote an objective process. Why was it not done independently and if necessary a third person adjudicates in the event of indecision? Policy recommendations: There is no indication from your write up on what policies countries have in place with regards to contraceptive usage for readers to appreciate if your policy recommendations are necessary. As it is no one knows what the countries within the review are doing. General comments: 1. There are so many recommendations authors could give. For instance taking a look at Table 1, the age groups of included studies indicate a gap. As indicated in the introduction the age group is 10-24 years but the selected studies lack on age group 10-13 who are also sexually active. 2. One would have expected that as what is known is being synthesised authors will identify gaps that need closing with research to win the low contraceptive battle. Because, bringing together what is available in the articles is not enough. This is concluded like a research based on a primary data. Gaps must be identified. Therefore as it is, a major revision is needed. 3. There's the need for editing to correct typographical errors 4. Authors failed to indicate why the focus is on qualitative studies ****** 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:** Hailemariam Segni A. (MD, MPH, Gyn/Obs) 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-10773_reviewer.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r001
Revision 1
2 Dec 2020 Author Response Response to Reviewers At this time, please address the following queries: a. Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. Response: This study did not receive any funding. b. State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Response: No funding was received for this study c. If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. Response: No salaries were received from funders. d. If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Response: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Response: 4.We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Response: In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. Response: 5. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: Authors need to go through the PDF document of the manuscript where reviewer comments are included. Response: this has been done and all issues raised by the reviewer have been pasted in the “response to reviewers” document and duly addressed The objective/question of the review was on three areas but only two of the questions were answered with the review. One question remains to be answered. 1. Search was conducted from a small number of data bases were searched. Response: Thank you for this comment. Based on previous studies including those published in Plos One, we believe that the number of databases searched were exhaustive enough to ensure we retrieve all relevant publications. We actually searched PubMed, EMBASE, Ebsco/PsycINFO and Scopus. Searching other sources may only create further duplication of papers as these are the most popular databases available. 2. Too many papers (4457) were retrieved from which only 13 were eligible. Maybe the search terms used were not refined enough? Response: Our study focused only on qualitative studies which was the reason for the rather small number of papers included in the final review. We have also detailed the search tersm in the methods section and believe that the terms used were exhaustive enough to produce the expected results. 3. The review has not answered one of the questions, Prevalence and usage. Response: The focus of this systematic review was only on the barriers and motivations for contraceptive uptake among young people. 4. The protocol mentioned Prevalence and usage as one of the questions to be answered. Response: The main review has focused only on the barriers and motivations 5. Enough number of data bases were not searched from. Response: Thank you for this comment. Based on previous studies including those published in Plos One, we believe that the number of databases searched were exhaustive enough to ensure we retrieve all relevant publications. We actually searched PubMed, EMBASE, Ebsco/PsycINFO and Scopus. Searching other sources may only create further duplication of papers as these are the most popular databases available. 6. This maybe one of the reasons why you had too many non-eligible studies during the search. Restriction of time of study and/or publication is one thing to seriously consider. Response: We agree with the reviewer that this is a plausible explanation of the high number of non – eligible studies we had. However, empirical qualitative research on the subject was not very rampant, and we wanted to be an inclusive as possible. 7. What about during a situation of failure to reach at consensus between the two reviewers? You need to have a third tie breaker reviewer in the team. Response: Even though a third reviewer was on standby, no such disagreements emerged between the two reviewers which required his inputs. That is why it has not been mentioned in the manuscript. 8. Prevalence and usage? Response: This has not been explored in our current review even though contained in the registered protocol. 9. Physical inaccessibility of buildings by the persons with disability" should be discussed here as one of the major barriers. Response: This has been done. See page 11. 10. "Physical inaccessibility of buildings by the persons with disability" should be part of the conclusion section as a major barrier. Response: This has been done. See page 12. 11. It is very difficult to reach at this type of conclusion based on this systematic review. Response: We have refined the statement to indicate that some countries, especially the ones from which the studies were reviewed, may not be able to achieve the SDG target with the persistence of the barriers identified. See page 12. Reviewer #2: This is a systematic review on Barriers to and motivations for contraceptive use among adolescents and young women in Sub-Saharan Africa. Since low contraceptive usage is a challenge African countries are grabbling with, synthesising knowledge to identify gaps is important for public health. Introduction: Pg3 The age range for young people includes adolescents. So why separate adolescents and young people in your population of interest? Response: We have revised the manuscript to focus only on young people. Methods: Pg 4 "the reviewers met" does not connote an objective process. Why was it not done independently and if necessary a third person adjudicates in the event of indecision? Response: the phrased has been revised accordingly (See page 5). Also, while a third reviewer was actually on standby, no serious disagreements in terms of what to include in the final review emerged and so that reviewer did not intervene. Policy recommendations: There is no indication from your write up on what policies countries have in place with regards to contraceptive usage for readers to appreciate if your policy recommendations are necessary. As it is no one knows what the countries within the review are doing. Response: A writ-up has now been included in the discussion in this regard. See page 12. General comments: 1. There are so many recommendations authors could give. For instance taking a look at Table 1, the age groups of included studies indicate a gap. As indicated in the introduction the age group is 10-24 years but the selected studies lack on age group 10-13 who are also sexually active. Response: A recommendation has been provided in this regard. See page 14. 2. One would have expected that as what is known is being synthesised authors will identify gaps that need closing with research to win the low contraceptive battle. Because, bringing together what is available in the articles is not enough. This is concluded like a research based on a primary data. Gaps must be identified. Therefore as it is, a major revision is needed. 3. There's the need for editing to correct typographical errors Response: This has been done. An English language expert has proof-read the manuscript. 4. Authors failed to indicate why the focus is on qualitative studies. Response: This has been done. See page 5. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviwers CommentsA-Reviewplosone.doc https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r002
12 Jan 2021 Decision Letter - Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Editor PONE-D-20-10773R1 Barriers to and motivations for contraceptive use among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of qualitative studies PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Luchuo Engelbert Bain, 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. Kindly address the minor comments of the reviewers. Please submit your revised manuscript by 11th March 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Ph.D. 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: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: (No Response) ****** 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: Reviewer’s comments 2 • Title: it is better if written as “Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub Saharan Africa: a systematic review of qualitative studies”. • Key words: replace “Motivation” with “Motivators”. • Methods: you need to include in methods section that a third reviewer was standby to be involved if disagreement happens between the two reviewers but there was need for it. • Some editorial work is still needed. Reviewer #2: Please I do not see the response authors indicated to be on page 12 of the manuscript to be a response to the request to provide existing policies on the various countries from where studies have been included. This is to contextualise and make relevant the policy recommendations. ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes:** Hailemariam Segni Abawollo, MD/OB-GYN, MPH 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Reviewers second round comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r003
Revision 2
17 Jan 2021 Author Response RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS Reviewer #1: Reviewer’s comments 2 • Title: it is better if written as “Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub Saharan Africa: a systematic review of qualitative studies”. Response: The title has been revised as recommended by the reviewer. See page 1 • Key words: replace “Motivation” with “Motivators”. Response: The change has been made as the reviewer recommended. See page 3 • Methods: you need to include in methods section that a third reviewer was standby to be involved if disagreement happens between the two reviewers but there was need for it. Response: The addition has been made. See page 6 • Some editorial work is still needed. Response: Some more editing has been done on the manuscript Reviewer #2: Please I do not see the response authors indicated to be on page 12 of the manuscript to be a response to the request to provide existing policies on the various countries from where studies have been included. This is to contextualise and make relevant the policy recommendations. Response: Please see page 13, lines 271-276 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r004
11 Apr 2021 Decision Letter - Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Editor PONE-D-20-10773R2 Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub Saharan Africa: a systematic review of qualitative studies PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Luchuo Engelbert Bain, 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. You are requested to revise the manuscript focusing on the recommendations. Ensure that the recommendations are reason and doable. Please submit your revised manuscript by 10th May, 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 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. [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 #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 #2: (No Response) ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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 #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 #2: No ****** 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 #2: Materials and methods 1. Please correct the sentence in line #101-103 Recommendations 1. Line #275: There is an omission in the sentence 2. Recommendation 1(line #273-276): but literature showed knowledge does not always translate to action, so authors should be recommending something other than increasing knowledge 3. Recommendation 3 (line #279-282): I know a country included in the review that is already practicing this, so you can’t box them together to still do this. Unless the country is facing implementation challenges. Then you suggest a separate recommendation to that effect. 4. Recommendation 5 (line#285-286): a country in your review has begun implementing free FP in pockets of places and not scaled up nationwide though. But your suggestion implies all countries should implement without considering what others are doing. 5. It is for these reasons I suggested you provide a context on the countries (i.e. policy) from which studies are included for your audience to appreciate things better. ****** 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 #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.0252745.r005
Revision 3
19 Apr 2021 Author Response 6. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #2: Materials and methods 1. Please correct the sentence in line #101-103 Response: The correction has been made as the reviewer suggested (See page 6) Recommendations 1. Line #275: There is an omission in the sentence Response: The entire sentence has been deleted in response to a subsequent comment made by the reviewer. See page 14. 2. Recommendation 1(line #273-276): but literature showed knowledge does not always translate to action, so authors should be recommending something other than increasing knowledge Response: The recommendation has been deleted based on the reviewer’s comments. 3. Recommendation 3 (line #279-282): I know a country included in the review that is already practicing this, so you can’t box them together to still do this. Unless the country is facing implementation challenges. Then you suggest a separate recommendation to that effect. Response: We have reviewed the suggestion to focus on countries which are not already implementing friendly contraceptive services for young people. See page 15. 4. Recommendation 5 (line#285-286): a country in your review has begun implementing free FP in pockets of places and not scaled up nationwide though. But your suggestion implies all countries should implement without considering what others are doing. Response: We have revised the recommendation to focus on countries which are not already implementing the voucher schemes. 5. It is for these reasons I suggested you provide a context on the countries (i.e. policy) from which studies are included for your audience to appreciate things better Response: We have deleted the recommendation. See page 15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r006
24 May 2021 Decision Letter - Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Editor Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub Saharan Africa: a systematic review of qualitative studies PONE-D-20-10773R3 Dear Dr. Luchuo Engelbert Bain, 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, Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, 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 #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 #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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 #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 #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 #2: (No Response) ****** 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 #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r007
Formally Accepted
27 May 2021 Acceptance Letter - Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh, Editor PONE-D-20-10773R3 Barriers and motivators of contraceptive use among young people in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review of qualitative studies Dear Dr. Engelbert Bain: 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. Eugene Kofuor Maafo Darteh Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252745.r008

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