PONE-D-21-14780

Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score and Validation of the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale- A National Survey

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mohsen,

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 Jul 02 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,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. We note that your Supporting Information file may include questionnaire items that may have been previously published. The reproduction of previously published work has implications for the copyright that may apply to these publications. We would be grateful if you could clarify whether you have obtained permission from the original copyright holder to republish these items under a CC BY license. If you have not obtained permission to publish these items please remove them from your manuscript. You may wish to replace the text you have removed with relevant question numbers/ brief descriptions of each item; please be sure to include any relevant references and in-text citations.

3. Please amend the manuscript submission data (via Edit Submission) to include author Salma Khadem alsrouji.

4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information.

5.Thank you for submitting the above manuscript to PLOS ONE. During our internal evaluation of the manuscript, we found significant text overlap between your submission and the following previously published works.

- https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-serious-threat-prepare-not-overreact/

We would like to make you aware that copying extracts from previous publications, especially outside the methods section, word-for-word is unacceptable, even for works which you authored. In addition, the reproduction of text from published reports has implications for the copyright that may apply to the publications.

Please revise the manuscript to rephrase the duplicated text, cite your sources, and provide details as to how the current manuscript advances on previous work. Please note that further consideration is dependent on the submission of a manuscript that addresses these concerns about the overlap in text with published work.

We will carefully review your manuscript upon resubmission, so please ensure that your revision is thorough.

[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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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 is a well reported study. However, the following points need clarification:

1) The authors state that sample size was calculated for a population of 17, 500, 657 people (line 100). It is well known that much less Syrians were living in Syria in 2020.

2) The authors imply that they tested a sample that is representing all Syrians. It is not clear how the 5000 participants were chosen to be invited to take part in the study.

3) This is web-based cross-sectional study employing social media. It is unlikely that all the people appearing in a random sample would have an online access to social media.

4) There is a contradiction between the statement (The original FCV-19S was translated into Arabic using a forward-backward translation technique – line 110) and the statement (For this study, we used the Arabic version of FCV-19S, which was validated in a previous study – line 123).

5) The title “Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score and Validation of the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale- A National Survey” implies that that the results of this survey could generalised to the whole Syrian nation. This does not seem to be the case as the authors acknowledge that They has used “convenience sampling” – line 244, and the results cannot be generalized. This study, thus, cannot be described as a national survey in the title and in the text.

6) the emphasis in the title on a “proposed cut-off point” that is useless is not appropriate.

Reviewer #2: I believe that the present study can add merits to the present understanding of fear toward COVID-19. To the best of my knowledge, although many studies have translated and validated the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S), none have proposed a cutoff for the FCV-19S. Therefore, the major contribution of the present study is the proposed cutoff with using previous standardized fear scales. Moreover, the present study has the strengths of (1) rigorous translation for the FCV-19S, (2) large sample size of 3989, and (3) adequate statistical methods. Therefore, I read this paper with greatest interests. However, several points should be addressed before I recommend publication. Please see my comments below.

1. I would like the authors to provide more information regarding the psychometric evidence of the FCV-19S. The following references are recommended to be included in a revision.

Chang, K.-C., Hou, W.-L., Pakpour, A. H., Lin, C.-Y., Griffiths, M. D. (accepted). Psychometric testing of three COVID-19-related scales among people with mental illness. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.

Pakpour, A. H., Griffiths, M. D., Chang, K.-C., Chen, Y.-P., Kuo, Y.-J., & Lin, C.-Y. (2020). Assessing the fear of COVID-19 among different populations: A response to Ransing et al. (2020). Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 89, 524-525.

Andrade, E. F., Pereira, L. J., Oliveira, A., Orlando, D. R., Alves, D., Guilarducci, J. S., & Castelo, P. M. (2020). Perceived fear of COVID-19 infection according to sex, age and occupational risk using the Brazilian version of the Fear of COVID-19 Scale. Death studies, 1–10. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1809786

Haktanir, A., Seki, T., & Dilmaç, B. (2020). Adaptation and evaluation of Turkish version of the fear of COVID-19 Scale. Death studies, 1–9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1773026

Caycho-Rodríguez, T., Valencia, P. D., Vilca, L. W., Cervigni, M., Gallegos, M., Martino, P., Barés, I., Calandra, M., Rey Anacona, C. A., López-Calle, C., Moreta-Herrera, R., Chacón-Andrade, E. R., Lobos-Rivera, M. E., Del Carpio, P., Quintero, Y., Robles, E., Panza Lombardo, M., Gamarra Recalde, O., Buschiazzo Figares, A., White, M., … Burgos Videla, C. (2021). Cross-cultural measurement invariance of the fear of COVID-19 scale in seven Latin American countries. Death studies, 1–15. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2021.1879318

Soares, F. R., Afonso, R. M., Martins, A. P., Pakpour, A. H., & Rosa, C. P. (2021). The fear of the COVID-19 Scale: validation in the Portuguese general population. Death studies, 1–7. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2021.1889722

Moreta-Herrera, R., López-Calle, C., Caycho-Rodríguez, T., Cabezas Guerra, C., Gallegos, M., Cervigni, M., Martino, P., Barés, I., & Calandra, M. (2021). Is it possible to find a bifactor structure in the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S)? Psychometric evidence in an Ecuadorian sample. Death studies, 1–11. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2021.1914240

2. In the second paragraph of the Introduction, the authors should include the following references, which also support the statement that COVID-19 impacts on individuals' physical and mental health.

Fung, X. C. C.#, Siu, A., Potenza, M. N., O'Brien, K. S., Latner, J. D., Chen, C.-Y., Chen, I.-H., & Lin, C.-Y. (2021). Problematic use of internet-related activities and perceived weight stigma in schoolchildren: A longitudinal study across different epidemic periods of COVID-19 in China. Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Malik, S., Ullah, I., Irfan, M., Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C.-Y., Pakpour, A. H., Griffiths, M. D., Rehman, I. U., & Minhas, R. (2021). Fear of COVID-19 and workplace phobia among Pakistani doctors: A survey study. BMC Public Health, 21, 833.

Mahmoudi, H., Saffari, M., Movahedi, M., Sanaeinasab, H., Rashidi-Jahan, H., Pourgholami, M., Poorebrahim, A., Barshan, J., Ghiami, M., Khoshmanesh, S., Potenza, M. N., Lin, C.-Y.*, Pakpour, A. H.* (2021). The mediating role of mental health in associations between COVID-19-related self-stigma, PTSD, quality of life and insomnia among patients recovered from COVID-19. Brain and Behavior, 11, e02138.

Chen, C.-Y., Chen, I.-H., Hou, W.-L., Potenza, M. N., O'Brien, K. S., Lin, C.-Y., & Latner, J. D. (2021). The relationship between children’s problematic Internet-related behaviors and psychological distress during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study. Journal of Addiction Medicine.

Chen, C.-Y., Chen, I.-H., Pakpour, A. H., Lin, C.-Y., & Griffiths, M. D. (2021). Internet-related behaviors and psychological distress among schoolchildren during the COVID-19 school hiatus. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Chen, I.-H., Chen, C.-Y., Pakpour, A. H., Griffiths, M. D., Lin, C.-Y., Li, X.-D., Tsang, H. W. H. (2021). Problematic internet-related behaviors mediate the associations between levels of internet engagement and distress among schoolchildren during COVID-19 lockdown: A longitudinal structural equation modeling study. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 10(1), 135-148.

Pramukti, I., Strong, C., Sitthimongkol, Y., Setiawan, A., Pandin M. G. R., Yen, C.-F., Lin, C.-Y., Griffiths, M. D., Ko, N.-Y. (2020). Anxiety and suicidal thoughts during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-country comparison among Indonesian, Taiwanese, and Thai university students. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(12), e24487.

Chen, C.-Y., Chen, I.-H., O'Brien, K. S., Latner, J. D., & Lin, C.-Y. (2021). Psychological distress and internet-related behaviors between schoolchildren with and without overweight during the COVID-19 outbreak. International Journal of Obesity, 45(3), 677-686.

Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C.-Y., Pakpour, A. H. (2020). The association between health status and insomnia, mental health, and preventive behaviours: The mediating role of fear of COVID-19. Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine, 6, 1-9.

Chang, K.-C., Strong, C., Pakpour, A. H., Griffiths, M. D., & Lin, C.-Y. (2020). Factors related to preventive COVID-19 infection behaviors among people with mental illness. Journal of the Formosan Medical Association, 119(12), 1772-1780.

Lin, C.-Y., Broström, A., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2020). Investigating mediated effects of fear of COVID-19 and COVID-19 misunderstanding in the association between problematic social media use and distress/insomnia. Internet Interventions, 21, 100345.

Chen, I.-H., Chen, C.-Y., Pakpour, A. H., Griffiths, M. D., & Lin, C.-Y. (2020). Internet-related behaviors and psychological distress among schoolchildren during COVID-19 school suspension. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 159(10), 1099-1102.

Lin, C.-Y. (2020). Social reaction toward the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). Social Health & Behavior, 3, 1-2.

3. The authors said "For this study, we used the Arabic version of FCV-19S, which was validated in a previous study.(31)". However, they also provide a section to describe the translation procedure. This is somewhat confusing because I cannot know whether the authors translated the FCV-19S by themselves or the translation descriptions are derived from the reference #31.

4. In ethics, please provide the registered number of the IRB.

5. If possible, I would like to know if there is any demographic difference between the analyzed sample (n=3989) and those who gave a consent but not used for data analysis (n=441). This can provide information to the readers regarding the sample representativeness.

6. In Discussion, the authors should mention that fear may be a factor impacts an individual's protective behaviors, including vaccination uptake using the references I provided below. Therefore, one should have a certain level of fear but not an overwhelming fear.

Wang, P.-W., Ahorsu, D. K., Lin, C.-Y., Chen, I.-H., Yen, C.-F., Kuo, Y.-J., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2021). Motivation to Have COVID-19 Vaccination Explained Using an Extended Protection Motivation Theory Among University Students in China: The Role of Information Sources. Vaccines, 9, 380.

7. Following my previous comment, the authors can make some comments regarding the low willingness of vaccination uptake in some countries (Kukreti et al., 2021), and thus monitoring fear is important.

Kukreti, S., Lu, M.-L., Lin, Y.-H., Strong, C., Lin, C.-Y., Ko, N.-Y., Chen, P.-L., & Ko, W.-C. (2021). Willingness of Taiwan’s healthcare workers and outpatients to vaccinate against COVID-19 during a period without community outbreaks. Vaccines, 9(3), 246.

8. I would encourage the authors reformatted their tables as they are hard to read. Please consult some published articles in PLOS ONE to revise these tables.

9. The references are not in good shape. Specifically, the authors used "Organization WH" to indicate "World Health Organization", which is incorrect. Also, there are some repeated references in the list (e.g., #16 and #19 are the same reference). The authors should check their reference list carefully.

**********

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: Adib Essali

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.

PONE-D-21-14780R1

Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score and Validation of the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mohsen,

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 Aug 21 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,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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: Partly

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 authors have responded to some but not all comments. The calculation of sample size is pointless and could be misleading. The authors agree that the population of Syria at the time of the study was unknown, i.e. it is not possible to calculate the sample size. In addition, sample size is calculated in order to generalise the results, and the results of this study cannot be generalised. I recommend removing the section about sample size.

My comment about the cutoff point stands. A 50/50 cutoff point is pointless. It is mere chance and the questionnaire is adding nothing.

Reviewer #2: The authors have improved their work after considering the comments from both reviewers. However, some minor works are needed further. Specifically, the authors did not reformat their reference list in a good shape. The Organization WH still shows up in the reference list. Please make sure the correctness of the reference list.

**********

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: Adib Essali

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.

PONE-D-21-14780R2

Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score and Validation of the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mohsen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE.

The reviewers have now recommended publication. However, before proceeding with accepting your paper for publication in PLOS ONE, I identify a few minor improvements that would benefit the quality of your research. Therefore, I invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the following points alongside a response file showing how you have responded to each of my comments.

1. Please report the average variance extracted (AVE) scores and items’ outer loadings as an assessment of construct validity for all of the measures used in the study. Also, computing the composite reliability (CR) would be great.
2. The script does not describe how the discriminant validity was assessed (e.g., HTMT). Please, revise accordingly.
3. Given the ongoing turmoil in Syria, literature on “Wartime Crisis Perceptions” should be brought up in the discussion, mainly concerning not considering this variable in the study, hence offering directions for future research. Similarly, COVID-19 perception (defined as “as the perceived probability of discomfort and/or worry, during COVID-19 pandemic, concerning the pandemic adverse health, economic and social ramifications articulated as disruptions to the people’s pre-pandemic everyday life – lead to redefining of the everyday life to the new normal.”) which conceptually should occur before developing fears and other negative experiences is warranted a discussion here too.
4. Ensure the accuracy of terms used in the paper (e.g., anxiety, fear are emotions that our perception of events would trigger).
5. The whole manuscript would benefit from proper proofreading.
6. I found some similarity issues that you will need to remedy. Please, see attached the similarity check report and paraphrase/cite accordingly.
7. Finally, given the study context, an Arabic abstract of the research, as supplementary material, would add more visibility to your paper. Also, ensure a list of the translated items is offered in Arabic as supplementary material too.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 25 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,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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: (No Response)

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 Response)

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: Thank you for making the changes. I hope that this will be the beginning of a successful research career. Please remember that panning and written a protocol BEFORE conducting research in the most important point in this field. Seek advice and discuss your protocol with many people before conducting studies in the future. With my best wishes.

Reviewer #2: The authors have revised the manuscript again and I have no more comments now. I am satisfied with the current version.

**********

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: Adib Essali

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-14780R2.pdf

PONE-D-21-14780R3Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score for the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 ScalePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mohsen,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, I feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, I invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses, IN FULL, the points raised during the previous round of the peer review. Please highlight or track all of the changes made in your revision in response to this decision letter. In addition, please, include a table/response file (This requirement is already mentioned below) detailing how each of the comments has been addressed in your revised manuscript. This is very critical for further consideration. For your convenience, I list the comments again herewith.

1. Please report the average variance extracted (AVE) scores and items’ outer loadings as an assessment of construct validity for all of the measures used in the study. Also, computing the composite reliability (CR) would be great.
2. The script does not describe how the discriminant validity was assessed (e.g., HTMT). Please, revise accordingly.
3. Given the ongoing turmoil in Syria, literature on “Wartime Crisis Perceptions” or “Personal Experience of Wartime Crisis (PEoWTC)” should be defined with proper citation(s) and brought up in the discussion, mainly concerning not considering this variable in the study hence offering directions for future research. Similarly, COVID-19 perception (defined as “as the perceived probability of discomfort and/or worry, during COVID-19 pandemic, concerning the pandemic adverse health, economic and social ramifications articulated as disruptions to the people’s pre-pandemic everyday life – lead to redefining of the everyday life to the new normal.”) which conceptually should occur before developing fears and other negative experiences is warranted a discussion here too.
4. Ensure the accuracy of terms used in the paper (e.g., anxiety, fear are emotions that our perception of events would trigger).
5. The whole manuscript would benefit from proper proofreading.
6. I found some similarity issues that you will need to remedy. Please, see attached the similarity check report and paraphrase/cite accordingly.
7. Finally, given the study context, an Arabic abstract of the research, as supplementary material, would add more visibility to your paper. Also, ensure a list of the translated items is offered in Arabic as supplementary material too.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 08 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,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

[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.

Fear among Syrians: a Proposed Cutoff Score for the Arabic Fear of COVID-19 Scale

PONE-D-21-14780R4

Dear Dr. Mohsen,

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,

Ali B. Mahmoud, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: