PONE-D-20-28405Temporal Search Persistence, Certainty, and Source Preference in Dentistry:Results from the National Dental PBRNPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Isett,

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2. a) Thank you for including your ethics statement: "The online survey was approved by the eight applicable Institutional Review Boards (six regions for the study, the PI's home institution, and the Collaborative PI's home institution. The approvals were provided in the standard format for each Board, typically written."

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

“This study was funded by grants U19-DE-22516 and U19-DE-28717 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.   We thank Michael Melkers for contributions to previous versions of this paper; Tracy Shea, Sharon Nicholson Harrell, Sonia Makhija, Jason McCargar, and Richa Singhania who provided initial insight into categories of our dental topics,  and the clinicians in the National Dental PBRN who took the time to respond to our survey. An Internet site devoted to details about the nation’s network is located at http://NationalDentalPBRN.org.  We are also grateful to our entire study team for their insight and contribution to this project (Eugenio Beltran, DMD, MPH, MS, DrPH, DABDPH, George Ford, DMD, Julie Frantsve-Hawley, RDH, PhD, Ellen Funkhouser, DrPH and Dan Meyer, DDS), and the Regional Coordinators who were indispensable in the data collection and follow up process (Meredith Buchberg, MPH, Claudia Carcelén, MPH, Colleen Dolan, MPH, Stephanie Hodge, MA, Hanna Knopf, BA, Shermetria Massingale, MPH, CHES, Deborah McEdward, RDH, BS, CCRP, Christine O’Brien, RDH, Stephanie Reyes, BA, Tracy Shea, RDH, BSDH, and Ellen Sowell, BA).”

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

“This study was funded by grants U19-DE-22516 and U19-DE-28717 from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (JM), https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. “

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4. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium National Dental PBRN Collaborative Group. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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

Reviewer #1: 1. Please provide data supporting statement of survey being representative of network at-large. Also, it would be helpful to extend this consideration to the practitioner population at the national level.

2. It would be helpful to gain a broader context for this information by providing temporal scale and frequency of practitioner engagement in search behaviors.

3. Clarify discriminating factor that led to this subset of respondents considered for this study from the larger pool of survey completors.

4. Results discussing 52-59% stopping search due to satisfaction need to be expanded to also include levels of dissatisfaction as well.

5. The distinction between these 2 statements need to be clarified: "...52% were satisfied with the answers they found in their first or second attempts." and "The percentage of searchers who stopped searching because they found a source that provided enough information in the second attempt (72%) was about the same as in the first attempt (76%)."

6. Justify this results statement including the definition of 'worth' being applied: "It was worth trying to find answers via a different route if the first did not work."

7. Again, clarification of the findings is needed similar to item 5 above with the following statement: "Of these, about 34% got the answer they needed. The next most commonly used source in the first round of searching was a general internet search (24%). Of these, 27% stopped searching because the source provided enough information. Those who went to a specific website first (only 8%) had slightly better luck finding information. Of the 8% who used a specific website first, 36% said they stopped searching after the first round because it provided enough information." If each search strategy is reaching less than 40% success, how is overall 76% success found for first search?

8. Clarify: "general dentists with advanced training were more than twice as likely as general dentists without advanced training to consult a peer-reviewed source first" when these groups' responses were 11% v 13%.

9. Sex differences in search stoppage are noted. It should be examined and clarified as to how this may reflect a greater persistence or a lesser effectiveness of searching.

10. As the survey was initiated relative to nicotine cessation and alternative tobacco products, there should be greater presentation of how this specific question was addressed relative to the general behaviors reported.

11. Figure 2. Remove the number 1 or 2 after reason descriptors as they are distracting to frequency data

Reviewer #2: This study tackled a topic that has not been previously explored in the depth and breadth described. This study will encourage more researchers to investigate traits in data retrieval amongst oral health providers to achieve best practice, and more importantly how to address misinformation, and encourage seeking peer reviewed resources.

Reviewer #3: Great job on drafting an interesting manuscript that addresses an important research question that is warranted in today’s face-paced clinical environment. The manuscript aims to understand the avenues that clinicians take when faced with scenario where they lack information. The authors conducted a survey among more than 3100 clinicians (dentists, hygienists and specialists) to understand the methods clinicians adopt to retrieve information and address uncertainties. Below are my comments:

Background:

Line 102 – I think the sentence needs rewording.

Methods:

Line 170 – Why did you choose members of the National Dental Practice Based Research Network as your sampling frame? I know you mentioned later that they were not very different than other clinicians, but I think your audience might need to see a rationale for your choice.

Line 174 – Could you please add the survey instrument as an appendix for the convenience of your audience?

Line 201 – Dependent variable: What was the rationale behind asking the participants to provide their own case? Was there any way you could have adjusted for the level of complexity of the case the participant came up with? How different do you think that could have been (dentists vs hygienists) (specialists vs GPs)? Do you think it would have been better to have a more homogenous sample (only dentists, only hygienists or only specialists)?

Discussion:

I think it’s important to elaborate on the implications of your findings re: clinicians prioritizing time over the credibility of resources from the professional and educational perspectives. What should the dental and dental hygiene associations do to make information more readily available for clinicians? How about integrating some of the researching techniques into school curricula? Do you feel clinicians are equipped with the skills that make their searching strategies efficient?

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Zaid H Baqain

Reviewer #3: No

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Temporal search persistence, certainty, and source preference in dentistry:

Results from the National Dental PBRN

PONE-D-20-28405R1

Dear Dr. Isett,

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.

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Dragan Pamucar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

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

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: The authors responded to all queries raised by the reviewers, and I have no concerns on dual publication, research ethics or publications.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for your responses to my earlier comments. I have no further comments or concerns. Best of luck!

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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

Reviewer #3: No