Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJanuary 15, 2021
Decision Letter - Satya Surbhi, Editor

PONE-D-21-01523

Effects of nurse-led transitional care interventions for patients with heart failure on healthcare utilization: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fang,

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 submit your revised manuscript by June 24, 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,

Satya Surbhi, PhD

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. Please note that PLOS ONE uses a single-blind peer review procedure. We would therefore be grateful if you could include in the information that has been redacted for peer review in the manuscript.

3. Please provide a justification for restricting your searches to studies published in the year 2000 or later.

4. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

"This work was supported by the Key Project of Science and Technology of XX Province (Province

name blinded for peer review) (No. 2020YFS0150) and the Nursing Discipline

Development Special Fund of XX (Name of university blinded for peer review) (No.

HXHL19024)."

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:

"The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

[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: 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: This manuscript is well written and comprehensive.

Only a few suggestions.

It would help to add a little more information regarding the "program dose" within the manuscript.

The studies in this review span 20 years. Any thoughts regarding change in these programs over time?

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The topic is of continued importance, given the morbidity and cost of heart failure care, and updates prior analyses by focusing more specifically on the role of nursing in care transition interventions for hospitalized heart failure patients.

I have several recommendations that would strengthen the manuscript.

1. Please clarify the outcomes measured. I think these are all 6 month outcomes (lines 96-98) but it would be helpful to clarify this is truly the case.

2. The HF-DMSI is adapted into a COM/ty score. It is not clear what the adaptation is, including a supplemental attachment that scores the adapted HF-DMSI for the studies, presumably using some but not all of the HF-DMSI scores would be helpful for reviewers.

3. Figure 1: PRISMA: given the high number of excluded studies by title or abstract review, it might be helpful to know how many were excluded due to either category. If this was recorded, this is ok to not include.

4. Meta-regression results: the trends suggest things that I think are likely true, that these programs are better for those with HFrEF (HF with reduced ejection fraction, and that there is a publication issue that readmission reductions are likely driven by earlier findings (vs. later when EHRs and better information sharing have occurred). It also looks like there are trends related to proportion of males although not sure about the trend related to place of initiation (hospital vs. home). I would recommend reporting on these trends in the text.

5: dose response: I am not sure that I would have inferred a relationship from figure 6b, but I am glad that the figure is included and not just reporting relative risks and p values.

4. References: should be cleaned up. My spot check found that citation 26 "Inc MUaEP" on line 440 is probably truncated due to the reference management software. Citation 31 is actually published in JAMA: Internal Medicine.

**********

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: No

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.

Revision 1

Dear editor and reviewers,

Thank you for your letter dated 25 May 2021.

On behalf of my colleagues, I am herewith submitting the revised manuscript entitled “Effects of nurse-led transitional care interventions for patients with heart failure on healthcare utilization: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” (PONE-D-21-01523) for consideration of publication in PLOS ONE. We would like to thank the editor and reviewers’ work devoted to our manuscript and we are very grateful for their valuable suggestions. We have considered the comments carefully and have made revisions (highlighted in red in the revised manuscript) which we hope meet with approval.

Journal Requirements:

1. “Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE’s style requirements, including those for file naming.”

Response: Reviewed and revised as suggested.

2. “Please note that PLOS ONE uses a single-blind peer review procedure. We would therefore be grateful if you could include in the information that has been redacted for peer review in the manuscript.”

Response: Thank you for your reminding. Included as suggested.

3. “Please provide a justification for restricting your searches to studies published in the year 2000 or later.”

Response: Thank you for your rigorous comment. A nurse-led model of care called Omada program was set up around 2000 to improve the management of heart failure. Thereafter, an increasing number of nurse-led disease management interventions for patients with heart failure has been implemented. In addition, classical models of nurse-led care transitions have been established one after another since the year of 2000 with the expectation to promote healthy behavior and reduce healthcare utilization. It was the time point that people started to realize the potential role of nurses in chronic disease management for heart failure. We thus determined to restrict the searches to studies published in the year 2000 or later.

4. “Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement.”

Response: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have removed the funding-related text from the manuscript as suggested. And we would like to update our Funding Statement in the cover letter as follows: “This work was supported by the Key Project of Science and Technology of Sichuan Province, China (Grant No. 2020YFS0150) and the West China Nursing Discipline Development Special Fund, Sichuan University (Grant No. HXHL19024). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

Comments to the Author:

Reviewer #1:

1. “It would help to add a little more information regarding the ‘program dose’ within the manuscript.”

Response: We gratefully thanks for the precious time the Reviewer #1 spent in making the positive and constructive suggestions. According to your suggestion, we have added more details about the “project dose” in lines 159-162 and 330-332 in the revised manuscript. The evaluating criterion of the “program dose” was based on the updated HF-DMSI, which was showed in S2 File.

2. “The studies in this review span 20 years. Any thoughts regarding change in these programs over time?”

Response: We strongly agree with your valuable comment and thank you very much. We have also considered the change in these programs over time, so the year of publication across studies was included as an effect modifier in our meta-regression analysis. As a result, univariate meta-regression analyses indicated that the treatment effect sizes were not modified by our prespecified parameters, including the year of the study (S5 File).

Reviewer #2:

1. “Please clarify the outcomes measured. I think these are all 6-month outcomes (lines 96-98) but it would be helpful to clarify this is truly the case.”

Response: We gratefully thanks for the precious time the Reviewer #2 spent in making these constructive remarks. We have revised the sentence and provided the rationale for the 6-month timeline for outcome assessment. Please see lines 97-101.

2. “The HF-DMSI is adapted into a COM/ty score. It is not clear what the adaptation is, including a supplemental attachment that scores the adapted HF-DMSI for the studies, presumably using some but not all of the HF-DMSI scores would be helpful for reviewers.”

Response: Thanks for your careful reading and providing us with some keen scientific insight. The supplemental attachment of the adapted HF-DMSI has been added as suggested. Please see S2 File. We have also added more descriptions about the instrument in lines 159-162 in the revised manuscript.

3. “Figure 1: PRISMA: given the high number of excluded studies by title or abstract review, it might be helpful to know how many were excluded due to either category. If this was recorded, this is ok to not include.”

Response: Thank you so much for your suggestion. We regret that we did not record the how many articles were excluded due to either titles and abstracts. But we believe that the review on the basis of title and abstract was conducted in strict accordance with the follow the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria.

4. “Meta-regression results: the trends suggest things that I think are likely true, that these programs are better for those with HFrEF (HF with reduced ejection fraction), and that there is a publication issue that readmission reductions are likely driven by earlier findings (vs. later when EHRs and better information sharing have occurred). It also looks like there are trends related to proportion of males although not sure about the trend related to place of initiation (hospital vs. home). I would recommend reporting on these trends in the text.”

Response: Thank you for the comment and we fully understand your concerns over “trend towards statistical significance”. While we appreciate the feedback, we respectfully disagree. The paper entitled “Trap of trends to statistical significance: likelihood of near significant P value becoming more significant with extra data (BMJ 2014;348:g2215)” presents a quantitative analysis to show that describing near significant p values as “trends towards significance” (or similar) is not just inappropriate but actively misleading (undermining the principle of accurate reporting), as such p values would be quite likely to become less significant if extra data were collected. Please kindly refer to the article published in BMJ with the following link: https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/348/bmj.g2215.full.pdf.

5. “Dose response: I am not sure that I would have inferred a relationship from figure 6b, but I am glad that the figure is included and not just reporting relative risks and p values.”

Response: Thanks for expressing your concern regarding the figure 6b. We used the one-stage robust error meta-regression (REMR) approach within STATA to conduct the dose-response analysis and generate the corresponding figure. Following the dose-response meta-analysis, we found a statistically significant linear association between the score of the adapted HF-DMSI and HF readmissions (p linearity < 0.001). The overall trend RR was 0.987 (95% CI = 0.981 to 0.993). According to the results, we inferred an inverse, linear relationship between the scores of the adapted HF-DMSI and HF-specific readmissions. Specifically, a 1.3% decrease in HF readmission risk correlated with one score increment in the “program dose” prescribed.

6. “References: should be cleaned up. My spot check found that citation 26 "Inc MUaEP" on line 440 is probably truncated due to the reference management software. Citation 31 is actually published in JAMA: Internal Medicine.”

Response: We are very sorry for the mistakes in the References and the inconvenience caused during your reading. We have revised all references carefully and tried to avoid citation inaccuracy. Thank you for your reminding.

The reviewers’ comments helped clarify and improve our paper. We appreciate for Editor/Reviewers' warm work earnestly.

Thank you again for your constructive comments and suggestions!

Submitted by the Authors.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Satya Surbhi, Editor

PONE-D-21-01523R1Effects of nurse-led transitional care interventions for patients with heart failure on healthcare utilization: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trialsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Fang,

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 ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact.

For Lab, Study and Registered Report Protocols: These article types are not expected to include results but may include pilot data. 

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 19 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: https://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,

Satya Surbhi, PhD

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: 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: I appreciate the changes made by the authors in response to reviewer comments. With regards to the adapated HF-DMSI, Table 1 should not use in its last column header "COM/Ty" and instead use "Adapted HF-DMSI" to be consistent with the text of the manuscript. I would recommend changing the Table 1 footnote by taking out the first two words "COM/Ty: the" and capitalize "adapted" so that the footnote helps a reader understand how the HF-DMSI was adapted (and can look for more information in the text and supplement).

**********

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.

Revision 2

We appreciate the time the Reviewer #2 spent in making the constructive suggestions. We have revised the last column header and the footnote in the table 1 in the revised manuscript as suggested.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Satya Surbhi, Editor

Effects of nurse-led transitional care interventions for patients with heart failure on healthcare utilization: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

PONE-D-21-01523R2

Dear Dr. Fang,

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,

Satya Surbhi, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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: Thank you for the changes, Table 1 now rrads appropriately with the change to the last column and the footnote.

**********

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

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Satya Surbhi, Editor

PONE-D-21-01523R2

Effects of nurse-led transitional care interventions for patients with heart failure on healthcare utilization: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Dear Dr. Fang:

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. Satya Surbhi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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 .