PONE-D-21-09107

International professional practices in mental health, organization of psychiatric care, and Covid-19: A survey protocol

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Denis,

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Vincenzo De Luca

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Partly

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

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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: No

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: PlosOne Manuscript Number PONE-D-21-09107

Title: “International professional practices in mental health organization of psychiatric care, and Covid-19: A survey protocol

Overview:

This study protocol aims to investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health care providers/professionals using survey data from 2,000 individuals located across 23 countries. The data collected will be used to develop tools to improve mental health care delivery during a global health crisis, as well as specific monitoring and support tools for mental health professionals. Overall, the proposed work addresses an important topic, as the world looks to recover from this pandemic and prepare for future public health crises. The writing and presentation, however, make it very unclear what has already been done, versus what aspects of this study have yet to be completed.

Specific comments:

Introduction-

1. In my opinion, too much time is spent discussing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the health care community in general, as this has been well described in the academic literature as well as the popular media. The focus here is more specifically mental health care providers and organizations.

Methods-

1. Since a standard questionnaire was not used, access to the full final survey should be provided as a supplement, or at least specific categories and examples of questions from each category. I see that there is an included supplemental material file, but it is not referenced in the body of the manuscript, so it is rather unclear what this table represents.

2. Figure 1- What happened to M7? Is there a more specific timeline (April 2021-March 2022, for example)?

3. Figure 2- this figure is not necessary; add a column to Table 1 that includes the actual number of HPP included in the

survey.

4. Given the international nature of this study, what language will/has been used for data collection and data management?

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Reviewer #1: No

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PONE-D-21-09107R1International professional practices in mental health, organization of psychiatric care, and Covid-19: A survey protocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Denis,

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 Jan 07 2022 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,

Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, 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.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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: No

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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Editor comments:

The manuscript requires English Proof.

Reviewer #1: Summary:

This work aims to build on preliminary work to better understand the psychological and societal impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on psychiatry professionals and mental health services/organizations in order to inform best practices regarding psychiatric support and recovery during this, and future public health crises. While the study and proposed work address important questions, the writing lacks clarity and is full of typos, making it difficult for this reviewer to fully assess the scientific content of this manuscript.

Specific comments:

Introduction

1. The final sentence of the first paragraph (lines 9-12) is unclear (and appears to have a missing word, or typo?). Furthermore, how can the effects have already lasted “several years after the trauma” when the pandemic was declared less than 2 years ago:

They exhibited signs of anger, anxiety, and stress related to the risk of contamination and the uncertainty in daily routines [3] and lasting negative effects several years after the trauma like include symptoms related to alcohol consumption, insomnia, and depression [3-5].

Study Design and Methods

2. Please provide clarification regarding the difference between “questionnaire grids” versus “themes” in the text. For example, are each of the themes being examined in each grid?

3. Please explain what is meant by “20 focus groups of mental health professionals.”

4. The terms inside parentheses on lines 137-138: What is this in referencing? For example, is this initial phase meant to address the feasibility of delivering the questionnaire, in terms of duration/time to deliver and complete, clarity of the questions, etc.?

5. Figure 1: Please do not use acronyms/abbreviations in the figure title, especially if they have not been introduced in the text. Please check flow chart text for typos and standardize the formatting/organization of the text; perhaps consider dividing each box into explicit "actions", "sub-tasks/actions" and "outcomes/aims"

Reviewer #2: Authors of article entitled "International professional practices in mental health, organization of psychiatric care, and Covid-19: A survey protocol" have addressed suggested comments.

[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.

International professional practices in mental health, organization of psychiatric care, and COVID-19: A survey protocol

PONE-D-21-09107R2

Dear Dr. Denis,

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,

Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: