Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needs

Mathew Albert Wei Ting Lim; Sharon Andrea Corinne Liberali; Hanny Calache; Peter Parashos; Gelsomina Lucia Borromeo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0266879

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 17, 2021
10 Feb 2022 Decision Letter - Ratilal Lalloo, Editor PONE-D-21-23289Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lim, 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 Mar 24 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. 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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, Ratilal Lalloo 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. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Authors; The reviewers have suggested a number of minor revisions. [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? 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? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: This is overall a well written paper that uses qualitative research methodology to explore the impact of a model of care where the local dental workforce is upskilled by SND specialist input, and it nicely brings out the benefits of this. The following minor revisions are suggested. 1. The authors should cite and discuss situations in other health disciplines where the approach described has been used with good effect, to bring out the general principles of the intervention, and its relevance to triaging according to case complexity. Examples from nursing and medicine would be informative. 2. Given differences in clinical scope for handling patients with medical complexity, was there a difference for the oral health therapist vs the general dentists with the approach used? 3. The references need to be formatted to be consistent, and to match PLoS One journal style. There are variations in abbreviations of journal names and in patterns of capitalization. The name of the journal in Ref 3 is given incorrectly. 4. Fig 1 could be classed as a table rather than a figure, perhaps, as it has no graphical elements. 5. In the Figure, the phrase "... what groups of patients with special need you commonly treat ..." should be "...what groups of patients with special needs you commonly treat ..." Reviewer #2: A well-articulated piece of qualitative research with clear data and rigorous analysis that support the conclusions of the impact and value of mentoring initiatives by SND specialists on the willingness of clinicians to provide care for individuals with special health care needs. A key strength was the research team’s ability to demonstrate how the key findings fit within the existing literature. This was seen through the provision of rich contextual background in the introduction and discussion sections, thereby emphasising the clinical significance and translatability of research findings to the current sentiments of and challenges faced by clinicians and SND specialists on the ground. In addition, inductive thematic analyses were utilised appropriately that enabled the emergence of interesting themes. Nuances from the responses of participants were also skillfully identified, elaborated and analysed, giving rise to a thought-provoking and refreshing read. Some minor points for the research team’s consideration would include elaboration on how data saturation was achieved, as well as provision of a coding tree to summarise the key emerging themes from the two unique groups of participants. ****** 6. 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:** Laurence J Walsh 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266879.r001
Revision 1
19 Mar 2022 Author Response Dr Ratilal Lalloo Academic Editor, PLOS ONE Saturday 19 March 2022 Dear Dr Lalloo, Re: Revisions to manuscript – Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needs [PONE-D-21-23289] Thank you for your correspondence and for the opportunity to revise our manuscript for submission to your journal. Our research team have read and addressed the comments of the reviewers with our responses outlined below. As requested, we have uplodaded a marked-up and unmarked copy of the revised paper for your consideration. Thank you for considering our manuscript for publication in your journal. We look forward to your response. Kind regards, Mathew Lim Response to review comments: Reviewer #1: This is overall a well written paper that uses qualitative research methodology to explore the impact of a model of care where the local dental workforce is upskilled by SND specialist input, and it nicely brings out the benefits of this. The following minor revisions are suggested. 1. The authors should cite and discuss situations in other health disciplines where the approach described has been used with good effect, to bring out the general principles of the intervention, and its relevance to triaging according to case complexity. Examples from nursing and medicine would be informative. We have added examples from the wider medical literature to the Introduction (P3 Lines 55-71) to demonstrate the benefit of mentoring and how the principles that underlie this practice may be applied to managing this patient cohort in the dental setting. 2. Given differences in clinical scope for handling patients with medical complexity, was there a difference for the oral health therapist vs the general dentists with the approach used? Thank you for your interesting observation. Based on the responses of the specialists involved in our study, it was not apparent that a different approach was used to support general dentists and oral health therapists. Presumably, this was factored into the nature of advice provided but it did not specifically emerge from the discussions in this study and thus was not discussed in our manuscript. Likewise, given the relatively small number of OHTs that were working at these clinics and involved in treating these patients, it may not have been clear in this study, but would be an interesting consideration for future studies in this area. 3. The references need to be formatted to be consistent, and to match PLoS One journal style. There are variations in abbreviations of journal names and in patterns of capitalization. The name of the journal in Ref 3 is given incorrectly. We have reviewed the reference list and made corrections to ensure consistency with the referencing style used. 4. Fig 1 could be classed as a table rather than a figure, perhaps, as it has no graphical elements. As suggested, Figure 1 has been renamed Table 1. 5. In the Figure, the phrase "... what groups of patients with special need you commonly treat ..." should be "...what groups of patients with special needs you commonly treat ..." Thank you for identifying this typographical error. This has been corrected. Reviewer #2: A well-articulated piece of qualitative research with clear data and rigorous analysis that support the conclusions of the impact and value of mentoring initiatives by SND specialists on the willingness of clinicians to provide care for individuals with special health care needs. A key strength was the research team’s ability to demonstrate how the key findings fit within the existing literature. This was seen through the provision of rich contextual background in the introduction and discussion sections, thereby emphasising the clinical significance and translatability of research findings to the current sentiments of and challenges faced by clinicians and SND specialists on the ground. In addition, inductive thematic analyses were utilised appropriately that enabled the emergence of interesting themes. Nuances from the responses of participants were also skillfully identified, elaborated and analysed, giving rise to a thought-provoking and refreshing read. Some minor points for the research team’s consideration would include elaboration on how data saturation was achieved, as well as provision of a coding tree to summarise the key emerging themes from the two unique groups of participants. We have added further comment to the Methods section to clarify that data saturation was considered achieved by consensus of the research team on review of the coding progressively throughout data collection (P6 Line 131). Coding trees are provided for the clinician and specialist groups in Figures 1 and 2 for additional clarity. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266879.r002
30 Mar 2022 Decision Letter - Ratilal Lalloo, Editor Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needs PONE-D-21-23289R1 Dear Dr. Lim, 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, Ratilal Lalloo Academic Editor PLOS ONE Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review? Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? 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? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing the suggested comments and I look forward to the publication of this work. ****** 7. 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:** Laurence J Walsh Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266879.r003
Formally Accepted
13 Apr 2022 Acceptance Letter - Ratilal Lalloo, Editor PONE-D-21-23289R1 Mentoring of oral health professionals is crucial to improving access to care for people with special needs Dear Dr. Lim: 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. Ratilal Lalloo Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266879.r004

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