PONE-D-21-33953Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Wearing Mask in the Population Presenting to Tertiary Hospitals in a Developing CountryPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Furnaz,

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Kind regards,

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: No

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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: No

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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: It seems "authors have worked hard in conducting this study and writing the manuscript of study.

I would like to draw attention of authors on following:

1. The language of the purpose of the study must be same both in the abstract and in the end of introduction.

Abstract: "The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of wearing a mask in the general population presented to three major tertiary care hospitals of a developing country."

Introduction: "The purpose of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of wearing a mask in the general population of a developing country at two major public sector and one private sector hospital."

Methodology: Authors have mentioned "regional adopted questionnaire used"; they have to clarify with regard to the region.

Figures (1 and 2) are not properly labelled.

Conclusion: The sentence mentioned in the conclusion in abstract is not included in conclusion of text of manuscript. Authors have taken sample of the people (patients and others) visiting the hospitals but not the sample of the people in general population; the conclusion must be focused on people (patients and others) visiting the hospitals as hospitals usually don't allow the people enter into hospital without wearing mask. People visiting hospitals are bound to wear the mask but general public usually don't follow the instruction in Pakistan as observed.

Authors have also mention the limitation of the study.

Reviewer #2: Abstract: This needs to be written again, in its current form it is poorly written. In the background, the authors require to highlight the importance of wearing a mask before explaining the purpose. In material and methods authors needs to mention which sampling approach and analysis tool have been used. Results need correction such [technique of putting on was 67.77±23.03, and technique 36 of taking off was 51.01±29.23] shown incomplete sentence.

Introduction The flow of the introduction is generally poorly structured. They have not provided some evidence regarding COVID-19 cases, vaccines delivered in developing countries. In addition, there is a needs to report the research gap and why this study is needed. What are the contributions of the study?.

Methods: This section needs to be sub-divided into the sampling and data collection, recruitment of the respondents, measures of the study (what questions have been asked), and data analysis. Furthermore, there can be critiques on the items used whether those are validated or not. There are several other issues in this part of the study such as how data was collected (i.e., face to face, online), participants have been approached and sampled. Why did they only select 370 participants, how the sample was calculated, did they use any calculation formula, if the authors employed it, there is a need to be reported. Proper justification needs to be added.

Results: This section has several issues as well. Such as which analytical tools and techniques have been used. Why authors did not use hierarchal regression. In addition, there can be common method bias, there is a need to report Harman’s single factor, and KMO test to ensure data is free from any bias.

Discussion: In this section, there is a need to give more importance to insignificant results, general results have been discussed less attention has been given to prior studies. For instance, whether work is consistent or inconsistent with previous studies.

Conclusion: This section needs to be sub-sectioned into implications (general/practical and government/policymakers), limitations, and future directions of the study.

Apart from the above, there are several grammatical errors into the study such as refer line 36, taking of needs to be taking off.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Rano Mal Piryani

Reviewer #2: Yes: Sikandar Ali Qalati

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Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Wearing Mask in the Population Presenting to Tertiary Hospitals in a Developing Country

PONE-D-21-33953R1

Dear Dr. furnaz,

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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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,

Pathiyil Ravi Shankar

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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 #1: Yes: Rano Mal Piryani

Reviewer #2: Yes: Sikandar Ali Qalati