PONE-D-21-07503Training, Attitudes, and Practice (TAP) among healthcare professionals in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, South Africa: A Health Promotion and Disease prevention perspectivePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Melariri,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The manuscript has been evaluated by two reviewers, and their comments are available below.

The reviewers have raised some concerns, including copyediting/language to improve readability to international audiences, rationale for experimental design, reporting of the study methodology, addressing experimental/survey bias, and data presentation.

Could you please revise the manuscript to carefully address the concerns raised?

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Sebastian Shepherd

Associate Editor

PLOS ONE

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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 

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2. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

3. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. Moreover, please include more details on how the questionnaire was pre-tested, and whether it was validated. 

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The manuscript in written in a clear and concise manner. The content is interesting and practical.

I think the topic is innovative and has implications for the medical field in general.

To improve an international audience understanding of content, add definitions for primary, secondary and tertiary facilities.

Also, replace to “our knowledge: with “based on the literature review for this project, this is only…”

Overall, this is a strong manuscript with the potential for a wide audience of readers.

Reviewer #2: This is a cross sectional study of healthcare professional views and experiences about health promotion and disease prevention in one municipality in South Africa. The authors find that although HCP value HP and DP, low levels of training in HP and DP were common and associated with lower levels of coordinated care and inclusion of HP and DP principles in medical care. A few comments/questions for the authors:

1. Why was this municipality chosen? How many HCP work in this municipality overall?

2. How were the 500 HCP chosen to participate? Convenience sample? What was the response rate?

3. Typically any results are reported as x/y (z%)

4. How did the questions decide on the survey questions to include? Was this based on any prior validated survey? Was the survey pilot tested for face or content validity?

5. P11 "The risk of coodinated HP training..." wording is awkward; would rewrite.

6. It would be helpful for Table 1 to list the demographics of the

7. The tables could be laid out more clearly and list the overall % of each group who agreed with the various statements rather than limited to Coefficients.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Michelle Lee D'Abundo

Reviewer #2: No

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Training, Attitudes, and Practice (TAP) among healthcare professionals in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, South Africa: A Health Promotion and Disease prevention perspective

PONE-D-21-07503R1

Dear Mr. Melariri,

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

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

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Kind regards,

Michelle Lee D'Abundo, PhD

Guest Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The information provided describes the TAP process in detail from a health promotion perspective. The research methods and results are clearly described and provide application for practice.

I support the publication of this article.

Reviewers' comments: