Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 15, 2021
Decision Letter - Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Editor

PONE-D-21-39583Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross sectional web based survey.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chomon,

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 Feb 20 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:

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. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability.

Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized.

Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access.

We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter.

[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: No

**********

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: Research article entitled "Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross sectional web based survey. " focuses to investigate the prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation among private medical students in Bangladesh with 237 medical students participated in this cross-sectional web-based survey. Authors found prevalence of depression was found 58.6%, and prevalence of suicidal ideation was found 27.4% which is higher than the global prevalence. This study showed that a large percentage of Bangladeshi medical students have been suffering from depression and suicidal ideation. While the topic is of increasing relevance, still, this reviewer has certain suggestions that would help produce a more comprehensive study of the topic:

Specific comments that the author should consider

1, Figure 1 and 2 quality may be improved (high resolution).

2, It would be required to provide one illustrative Figure as to highlight the summary or future prospect of this study.

4, The English of manuscript can be polished (minor).

5, The authors should cross-check all abbreviations in the manuscript. Initially, define in full name followed by abbreviation.

6, Author should also consider COVID-19 pandemic in their study as this may be the added factor in depression.

7, Due to the COVID-19 pandemic work pressure (on medical fraternity) was another factor to be considered in this study.

Reviewer #2: In this paper entitled "Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross-sectional web-based survey.," the author investigates the prevalence of depression and suicidal ideation among private students in Bangladesh. An online google form is used to perform the crosssectional survey in the manuscript. The study is well carried out and easy to understand. However, This manuscript requires a revision before its publication in PLOS One as follows:

Comments:

1) The English of the manuscript may be improved.

2) The current data only provide a glimpse of the private college in Bangladesh. The author has not considered including other medical colleges in the region for data collection. State reason?.

4) Limited statistical measure was used in the manuscript. Why has the author not used other statistical measures for data analysis, including logistic regression and others?.

5) The author has cited low-impact journals in the manuscript. However, many studies regarding depression and suicidal ideation are available on PubMed in prestigious journals like PLoS one and others.

6) Introduction: The importance of this study may be more highlighted explicitly at the start.

7) Discussion: The author may add a general discussion section to interpret the results with the literature or theories. The 

8) Improve the quality of the figures. The resolution and quality of the paper are low for publication.

**********

[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

I have been asked to explain why my data set only contains Enam Medical College students; it is because in our country, due to the pandemic, most colleges have been closed. As I am a faculty member of Enam Medical College, I was able to collect information by directly contacting the students through email and other online platforms.

Minimal data set has been added as supporting information. One illustrative figure is added and the quality of the figures have been improved. Data analysis by logistic regression based Odds Ratio have been calculated. High-impact factor journals from PubMed and PLOS One were cited. The introduction and discussion parts have been improved to explain the importance of this study.

Decision Letter - Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Editor

Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross sectional web based survey.

PONE-D-21-39583R1

Dear Dr. Chomon,

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,

Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Que

Reviewer #1: The manuscript entitled "Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross sectional web based survey." has been improved form its first draft.

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel, Editor

PONE-D-21-39583R1

Depression and suicidal ideation among medical students in a private medical college of Bangladesh. A cross sectional web based survey.

Dear Dr. Chomon:

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. Sanjay Kumar Singh Patel

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 .