PONE-D-21-25002Characterisation of the long-term physical and mental health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Paul Kuodi

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Rizaldy Taslim Pinzon

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Partly

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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.

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

Reviewer #1: The subject is good.

To the authors: Regarding the second outcome, Mental health outcome (Depression, anxiety) different studies may measure these outcomes differently or using different tools. How are you going to deal with this?

You may consider looking at the Grey literature as a means to reduce on the publication bias.

Its is good to specify the tools that you will use to assess the quality of the studies before hand (Of course different study designs require different tools)

Reviewer #2: Comments to the authors

This paper focuses on an important global problem. It aims to synthesise existing data to examine the long-term physical and mental health impact of SARS-COV-2 infection on patient. This paper would make important contributions to the ongoing global efforts to manage covid-19 infection. Some parts of the paper still require further work and specific comments are provided below:

1) Abstract

- The authors should also consider searching for relevant papers through EMBASE and PsycINFO databases.

- Also specify whether you intend to apply any geographical or language restrictions.

- What publication year/period do you intend to cover? e.g. 2020, 2021, etc? Mention it here.

2) Methods

- Line 96: What does the author mean by social health domain? This seems out of place since this paper is about physical and mental health impact of Covid-19.

- Lines 113 to 125, search strategy: here, the authors listed the search terms they intend to use. How did they identify the Covid symptoms listed here? Was it through published key literature and/or through discussions with librarians, experts, etc? This should be stated.

But what if the patients have symptoms other than those listed in the search terms? It would be a good idea for the authors to seek external input/feedback on this e.g. from clinicians.

- Line 125: Appendix 2? No other appendix was mentioned prior to this one. The authors should crosscheck the numbering – edit or mention appendix 1 in the appropriate place.

- Line 130 to 132, information sources: also consider searching EMBASE and PsycINFO, specify what publication years/periods you intend to cover and whether there will be geographical and language restrictions.

- Lines 145–150: in line with the study title, the authors should clearly indicate when they are referring to physical vs mental symptoms. For example, “…… self-reported or verified physical symptoms of SARS-COV-2 infection……..”.

- Line 164: host institution of the study may not be necessary. Consider extracting information about various definitions of post-acute covid, e.g. long covid or chronic covid.

- Line 181 to 182, study quality assessment: “The studies will be assessed for quality using quality assessment tools appropriate for each study design”. This statement is not sufficient as it does not tell readers which specific tool(s) you intend to use to undertake this task. Be specific.

- Line 187, descriptive analysis and meta-analysis: “data analysis” or “statistical analysis” would be a more appropriate name for this section. The authors should also consider conducting sensitivity analysis, if possible, to examine the effect of the definitions of post-acute covid e.g. >3 weeks (long covid) vs >12 weeks (chronic covid) vs both. This is important in view of lack of consensus regarding case definition which the authors mentioned in the introduction section.

Statistical analysis should also explore the presence/absence of pre-existing conditions. If there were pre-existing physical or mental health conditions, the persisting symptoms (during the post-acute phase) may not be exclusively due to the covid infection.

Reviewer #3: Authors to critically read through and make corrections to use of language. Authors could find useful other scientific research sites as contained in the attached document.

Reviewer #4: 1. In the space provided for the research question, please write it out in full.

2. Is the figure indicated (3000) expected funding? If so, please write the financial disclosure statement in full.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Mufutau Yunusa

Reviewer #4: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: R-PONE-D-21-25002.pdf

Characterisation of the long-term physical and mental health consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

PONE-D-21-25002R1

Dear Dr. Paul Kuodi 

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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Kind regards,

Rizaldy Taslim Pinzon

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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