The Theory of Planned Behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of health behaviors between Belgian and French residents

Robin Wollast; Mathias Schmitz; Alix Bigot; Olivier Luminet

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0258320

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 24, 2021
19 Aug 2021 Decision Letter - Valerio Capraro, Editor PONE-D-21-20498 The theory of planned behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of health behaviors between Belgian and French residents PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wollast, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please find below the reviewers' comments, as well as those of mine. Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 03 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: 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, Valerio Capraro 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. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: "This study has been supported by a grant from the Foundation Louvain." We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "This study has been supported by a grant from the Foundation Louvain." Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "This study has been supported by a grant from the Foundation Louvain" 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. 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.” c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. d) 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 Additional Editor Comments (if provided): I have now collected two reviews from two experts in the field. Both reviewers think that the paper has potential, but suggest several improvements. Therefore, I would like to invite you to revise your work for Plos One. Needless to say that all comments should be addressed. Besides the reviewers' comments, I would like to add a couple more comments. The relationship between social norms and protective behaviour was investigated also in other papers (e.g., Bilancini et al. 2020). The "perspective article" on what behavioural science can do to support pandemic response, published by Van Bavel et al. in Nature Human Behaviour, might be a useful general reference. Of course, it is not a requirement to cite these papers, but in general I think that the paper should be placed better within the emerging literature. I am looking forward for the revision. Bilancini E, Boncinelli L, Capraro V, Celadin T, Di Paolo R (2020) The effect of norm-based messages on reading and understanding COVID-19 pandemic response governmental rules. Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy 4, Special Issue 1, 45-55. Van Bavel, J. J., et al. (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour, 4, 460-471. [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: No Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The study examines The present study affords a validation of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a conceptual framework for explaining the adoption of handwashing and limitation of social contacts, two health behaviors that highly differ in their nature. I believe this manuscript has substantial contributions in the public health field, however, there are several questions and doubts the authors need to address in a major revision. Here are some: 1. The proposed conceptual framework lacks in-depth discussion. How did the authors come up with the latent constructs in their model? What makes their model different from similar studies and how did they ensure the validity of the content? There was one comprehensive study by Prasetyo et al., (2020) who also explored factors affecting the perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures by utilizing PMT and extended TPB. This manuscript needs to discuss in-depth the differences between Prasetyo et al., (2020) in the introduction and discussion parts. • Prasetyo, Y., Castillo, A., Salonga, L., Sia, J., & Seneta, J. (2020). Factors affecting perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures among Filipinos during Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon, Philippines: Integrating Protection Motivation Theory and extended Theory of Planned Behavior. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 99, 312-323. https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1016%2Fj.ijid.2020.07.074&data=04%7C01%7Cytprasetyo%40mapua.edu.ph%7C2781c2ff714741f6f3ba08d88bdd4cb0%7Cc7e8b5ac96c64123a65a793543aced4d%7C0%7C0%7C637413129903670551%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=L2UPUGnmfP9OhWjeIx39tkUHzweCdcJX3%2BmL7GJmYqo%3D&reserved=0 2. Similarly, the research gap of this study in is lacking in most updated studies. I cannot justify in what way(s) the past researches failed to provide valuable information regarding this matter. Please add some of the most updated studies related to TPB in the context of COVID-19. 3. Please show the mean, standard deviation, and the factor loading for each indicator. 4. Please show the demographic characteristic of the respondents by using a table, not just the description. 5. Please also show each indicator under the latent in one table, not just the description. It will enhance the readability of the paper. 6. I want to see the reliability and validity test results. Please show the cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. 7. Why splitting handwashing and social contacts? Why not combine it in 1 model with 2 exogenous latent variables? 8. Why not adding the country in the SEM? Perhaps you can do the dummy code 1: French 2: Belgium. Let’s see the effect of the country in the model. Or you may split the model into 2: Fench model and Belgium model. 9. Again, there are many TPB studies in 2021. Please compare your findings with the most updated studies. Reviewer #2: Congratulations on this well written piece of work. Please find my comments below; "Several meta-analyses have provided evidence for the ability of the components of the TPB to predict general health behaviors (e.g., Conner & Norman, 2015). Interestingly, a few studies have addressed these associations during the COVID-19 context, on several health behaviors such as physical distancing (Zhang et al., 2019), mask wearing (Chung et al., 2018) and intentions to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (Chu & Liu, 2021; Shmueli, 2021). However, the literature suffers from a lack of studies focusing on limitation of social contacts as a health behavior. This limitation is addressed in the present research." - While that is true to an extent, you may want to have a look at this article published in PLOS1 that has assessed the behavior modifications during COVID-19 using the TPB on a wide multi-country scale (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239961) "suggest that the TPB model is a more universal rather than culture specific process in explaining protective behaviors, when comparing different targeted health behaviors among individuals living in different national contexts." - I believe that may be an overstatement. Verily, Belgian and French nationals do differ appreciably with respect to culture and social norms, however, that difference is not striking, given their very close geographic location, european heritage and descent. - I am under the impression that one of the aims of this manuscript was to attest to the validity of the TPB, which has been extensively used and validated in the fiield of health research since its advent in 1991. ****** 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:** Assoc.Prof.Yogi Tri Prasetyo, Ph.D. 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.0258320.r001
Revision 1
7 Sep 2021 Author Response 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: No Reviewer #2: Yes 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes 5. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: The study examines The present study affords a validation of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a conceptual framework for explaining the adoption of handwashing and limitation of social contacts, two health behaviors that highly differ in their nature. I believe this manuscript has substantial contributions in the public health field, however, there are several questions and doubts the authors need to address in a major revision. Here are some: Response: We would like to thank Associate Professor Yogi Tri Prasetyo for his careful read on our manuscript and constructive comments. 1. The proposed conceptual framework lacks in-depth discussion. How did the authors come up with the latent constructs in their model? What makes their model different from similar studies and how did they ensure the validity of the content? There was one comprehensive study by Prasetyo et al., (2020) who also explored factors affecting the perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures by utilizing PMT and extended TPB. This manuscript needs to discuss in-depth the differences between Prasetyo et al., (2020) in the introduction and discussion parts. • Prasetyo, Y., Castillo, A., Salonga, L., Sia, J., & Seneta, J. (2020). Factors affecting perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures among Filipinos during Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon, Philippines: Integrating Protection Motivation Theory and extended Theory of Planned Behavior. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 99, 312-323. https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30622-6/fulltext Response: Thank you for the appreciation of our work. The purpose of the present research was to compare the model of the TPB on handwashing and limitation of social contacts among people living in Belgium and France within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess the central dimensions of the TPB (Ajzen, 1991), participants were asked to answer on a Likert-scale ranging from 1 (Completely disagree) to 5 (Completely agree) four items corresponding to the four dimensions for each of the two targeted health behaviors (handwashing and limitation of social contacts). Specifically, the four dimensions were attitudes (“I believe that doing X will limit spreading of the COVID-19” [X represents the targeted behavior]), social norms (“My relatives expect from me to do X”), perceived control (“For me, doing X is easy”) and intentions (“I am ready to do X”). Consequently, it is important to highlight that we only used one item per dimension, which was adapted for each health behavior. This design makes it statistically impossible to rely on a model with latent constructs including factor loadings. This is why we reported a path analysis of observed variables. However, we validated our model in both Belgium and France using multiple fit indices (e.g., CFI, RMSEA) to provide a multifaceted assessment of the models (Tanaka, 1993). Model fit statistics were good suggesting that our model holds in both national contexts. As suggested, we have included the work of Prasetyo et al. (2020) in our research. Specifically, we wrote that: “Interestingly, numerous studies have addressed these associations during the COVID-19 context, on several health behaviors such as physical distancing (Zhang et al., 2019), mask wearing (Kim et al., 2020), handwashing (Ammar et al., 2020), intentions of traveling (Hamid & Bano, 2021), and intentions to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (Chu & Liu, 2021; Shmueli, 2021). In the same vein, Prasetyo et al. (2020) demonstrated that factors derived from an extended version of TPB were significantly associated with behavioral intention (see also Fan et al., 2021).” Additionally, we have also referred to their work in the discussion: “The results of the present study are consistent with other studies who also demonstrated that positive attitudes (e.g., Chu & Liu, 2021), social norms (e.g., Capraro & Barcelo, 2020; Lunn et al., 2020), and intentions (e.g., Gibson et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2020) play key roles in the adhesion of health behaviors related to the COVID-19 (see also Koi & Long, 2021; Prasetyo et al., 2020).” Finally, we wrote that: “Third, the current study compares the original TPB model in Belgium and France. However, studies have explored extended TPB models including additional components (e.g., perceived vulnerability, perceived severity, knowledge about COVID-19, risk perception of COVID-19). These extended components could play a role in explaining behavioral responses in the French and Belgian national contexts (Fan et al., 2021; Prasetyo et al., 2020).” 2. Similarly, the research gap of this study in is lacking in most updated studies. I cannot justify in what way(s) the past researches failed to provide valuable information regarding this matter. Please add some of the most updated studies related to TPB in the context of COVID-19. Response: As suggested, we have included several studies related to TPB, or specific components of the TBP (social norms, attitudes, perceived control, intentions) in the context of COVID-19. Specifically: Ammar, N., Aly, N. M., Folayan, M. O., Khader, Y., Virtanen, J. I., Al-Batayneh, O. B., … El Tantawi, M. (2020). Behavior change due to COVID-19 among dental academics—The theory of planned behavior: Stresses, worries, training, and pandemic severity. PLOS ONE, 15(9), e0239961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239961 Capraro, V., & Barcelo, H. (2020, May 16). The effect of messaging and gender on intentions to wear a face covering to slow down COVID-19 transmission. PsyArXiv. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/tg7vz Fan, C.-W., Chen, I.-H., Ko, N.-Y., Yen, C.-F., Lin, C.-Y., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2021). Extended theory of planned behavior in explaining the intention to COVID-19 vaccination uptake among mainland Chinese university students: an online survey study. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2021.1933687 Hossain, M. B., Alam, M. Z., Islam, M. S., Sultan, S., Faysal, M. M., Rima, S., … Al Mamun, A. (2021). Health Belief, Planned Behavior, or Psychological Antecedents: What predicts COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy better among the Bangladeshi Adults? https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.04.19.21255578 Kim, Y.-J., Cho, J., & Kang, S.-W. (2020). Study on the Relationship between Leisure Activity Participation and Wearing a Mask among Koreans during COVID-19 Crisis: Using TPB Model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(20), 7674. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17207674 Khoi, B. H., & Long, N. N. (2020). An Empirical Study about the Intention to Hoard Food during COVID-19 Pandemic. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(7), em1857. doi:10.29333/ejmste/8207 Lunn, P. D., Timmons, S., Belton, C. A., Barjaková, M., Julienne, H., & Lavin, C. (2020). Motivating social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic: An online experiment. Social Science & Medicine, 265, 113478. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113478 Gibson, L. P., Magnan, R. E., Kramer, E. B., & Bryan, A. D. (2021). Theory of Planned Behavior Analysis of Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Focusing on the Intention–Behavior Gap. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 55(8), 805–812. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab041 Hamid, S., & Bano, N. (2021). Behavioral Intention of Traveling in the period of COVID-19: An application of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Perceived Risk. International Journal of Tourism Cities. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijtc-09-2020-0183 Prasetyo, Y., Castillo, A., Salonga, L., Sia, J., & Seneta, J. (2020). Factors affecting perceived effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention measures among Filipinos during Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon, Philippines: Integrating Protection Motivation Theory and extended Theory of Planned Behavior. International Journal of Infectious Diseases, 99, 312-323. https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(20)30622-6/fulltext Zhang, M., Li, Q., Du, X., Zuo, D., Ding, Y., Tan, X., & Liu, Q. (2020). Health behavior toward COVID-19: the role of demographic factors, knowledge, and attitude among Chinese college students during the quarantine period. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health, 32(8), 533-535. https://doi.org/10.1177/1010539520951408 3. Please show the mean, standard deviation, and the factor loading for each indicator. Response: Means, standard deviations and related statistics for both Belgian and French participants are reported in Table 2 for handwashing and Table 3 for limitation of social contacts. Factor loadings are not included in our model as we do not rely on a model with latent constructs (see Response 1). 4. Please show the demographic characteristic of the respondents by using a table, not just the description. Response: As suggested, we have created a new table including demographic characteristics for both Belgian and French participants (see Table 1). 5. Please also show each indicator under the latent in one table, not just the description. It will enhance the readability of the paper. Response: We did not rely on a latent analysis (see Response 1). 6. I want to see the reliability and validity test results. Please show the cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. Response: Given that we have one item per dimension, we cannot calculate Cronbach's alphas. However, an inspection of the correlations revealed strong, significant and positive associations between the main components of the TPB among both national groups and for both health behaviors, indicating high reliabilities among the selected items. 7. Why splitting handwashing and social contacts? Why not combine it in 1 model with 2 exogenous latent variables? Response: As described in the method section (see also Response 1), we relied on different items for handwashing and limitation of social contacts, which does not allow to include them in the same model. Most importantly, adapting our items to the specific measures of health behaviors allowed us to better capture their associations with handwashing and limitation of social contacts. 8. Why not adding the country in the SEM? Perhaps you can do the dummy code 1: French 2: Belgium. Let’s see the effect of the country in the model. Or you may split the model into 2: Fench model and Belgium model. Response: This is a good suggestion. We have indeed relied on your second suggestion and tested the model as a function of nationality. We selected this statistical method because it allowed us to test the equality of correlations and standardized regression coefficients between Belgian and French residents using a series of Wald Chi-Squared Tests (Klopp, 2019). We believe it is the most robust, modern and appropriate statistical approach to adequately capture the strength of our data. 9. Again, there are many TPB studies in 2021. Please compare your findings with the most updated studies. Response: We agree with you that our manuscript could benefit from the addition of TPB studies related to the COVID-19. As described in Response 2, we have included numerous recent studies in the introduction and discussion. Thank you again for your careful revision. Reviewer #2: Congratulations on this well written piece of work. Response: We would like to thank Reviewer #2 for his/her encouraging feedback and useful comments. Please find my comments below; "Several meta-analyses have provided evidence for the ability of the components of the TPB to predict general health behaviors (e.g., Conner & Norman, 2015). Interestingly, a few studies have addressed these associations during the COVID-19 context, on several health behaviors such as physical distancing (Zhang et al., 2019), mask wearing (Chung et al., 2018) and intentions to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (Chu & Liu, 2021; Shmueli, 2021). However, the literature suffers from a lack of studies focusing on limitation of social contacts as a health behavior. This limitation is addressed in the present research." - While that is true to an extent, you may want to have a look at this article published in PLOS1 that has assessed the behavior modifications during COVID-19 using the TPB on a wide multi-country scale (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239961) Response: This is a good suggestion. Specifically, we now cite Ammar et al. (2020)’s study in the introduction: “Interestingly, numerous studies have addressed these associations during the COVID-19 context, on several health behaviors such as physical distancing (Zhang et al., 2019), mask wearing (Kim et al., 2020), handwashing (Ammar et al., 2020), intentions of traveling (Hamid & Bano, 2021), and intentions to receive a COVID-19 vaccine (Chu & Liu, 2021; Shmueli, 2021).” "suggest that the TPB model is a more universal rather than culture specific process in explaining protective behaviors, when comparing different targeted health behaviors among individuals living in different national contexts." - I believe that may be an overstatement. Verily, Belgian and French nationals do differ appreciably with respect to culture and social norms, however, that difference is not striking, given their very close geographic location, european heritage and descent. Response: This is a good point to consider. As suggested, we have tempered our conclusions and wrote that: “Importantly, the results of the present study indicate that (1) the four TPB components play a key role in developing and maintaining health behaviors during the COVID-19 crisis and (2) suggest that the TPB model tends to manifest similarly across countries in explaining protective behaviors, when comparing different targeted health behaviors among individuals living in different national contexts.” We have also made this change in the abstract. - I am under the impression that one of the aims of this manuscript was to attest to the validity of the TPB, which has been extensively used and validated in the field of health research since its advent in 1991. Response: With respect to Reviewer #2, the purpose of the present research was to compare the model of the TPB on handwashing and limitation of social contacts among people living in Belgium and France within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to compare our model within our two samples of French and Belgian participants, we had to report model fit statistics (e.g., CFI, RMSEA). Fortunately, these excellent model fit statistics simply demonstrate that the theoretical model holds perfectly in these two different national contexts, which allows us to compare and draw conclusions based on this cross-national study. 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: Assoc. Prof. Yogi Tri Prasetyo, Ph.D. Reviewer #2: No Response: We would like to thank Associate Professor Yogi Tri Prasetyo and Reviewer #2 for their careful revision of our manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258320.r002
24 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Camelia Delcea, Editor The theory of planned behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of health behaviors between Belgian and French residents PONE-D-21-20498R1 Dear Dr. Wollast, 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, Camelia Delcea 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 Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes 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: The manuscript looks so much better now. Thank you for addressing all my comments. I think it is ready for publication. Congratulations. Reviewer #2: Thank you for considering my previous comments. I have no further comments on your manuscript. Best wishes. ****** 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:** Assoc.Prof.Dr.Yogi Tri Prasetyo Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258320.r003
Formally Accepted
21 Oct 2021 Acceptance Letter - Camelia Delcea, Editor PONE-D-21-20498R1 The theory of planned behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison of health behaviors between Belgian and French residents Dear Dr. Wollast: 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. Camelia Delcea Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258320.r004

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 .