PONE-D-21-17998Assessing the Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Shift to Online Learning, and Social Media Use on Mental Health Among College Students in the Philippines: A Mixed-Method Study ProtocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Baja,

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 address all comments from reviewers 1 and 2. Please disregard the comments from reviewers 3 and 4 to the effect that protocols shouldn't be published; PLOS ONE considers study protocols for publication (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/what-we-publish#loc-study-protocols).

Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 25 2021 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,

Yann Benetreau, PhD

Senior Editor

PLOS ONE

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

“The research received a grant from the American Red Cross through the Philippine Red Cross and Red Cross Youth.”

We note that you have provided additional information within the Acknowledgements Section that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. Please note that 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:

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Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Author

The manuscript is deemed to be not suitable for accepting for corrections or publications as it never meets the basic quality of an SSCI journal. Please refer to the comments from the reviewers.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Partly

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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: No

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

**********

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: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

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

Reviewer #1: This study protocol aims to access the psychological effects among college students (18-25 years old) in the Philippines from the global pandemic, COVID-19, shift to online learning, and social media usage. The objectives of the study protocol address using a mixed-method study design that utilizes the quantitative and qualitative components. For the quantitative analysis, the authors propose sending an online self-administered questionnaire to the eligible participants to answer on socio-demographic factors. Based on the information provided, mental health outcomes will be assessed using two validated survey tools, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and Brief-COPE. Additionally, the authors propose estimating the association between mental health outcomes and possible risk factors by using generalized linear models. Key informant interviews, a part of the qualitative component that addresses the stressors affecting the student’s mental health and behavior during the quarantine period. Finally, the authors suggest evaluating the data from quantitative and qualitative sources by using Data triangulation, which analyzes multiple sources of data to enhance the credibility of a research study.

The careful methodology provided in this study protocol will allow other researchers to apply this design to their studies. The validation of this study should provide a roadmap to study the effect of the pandemic on students in other countries.

The design of the study is very detailed for the most part. The authors have provided the necessary information about how the study population would be recruited and provided a justification for the sample size (quantitative data) that would be included in the study by providing relevant power calculations. However, for the qualitative study increasing the number of participants from different areas of the country would improve the quality of the outcome. Also, I would like to ask if any of the authors are Psychologists? If not, please acknowledge the Psychologists if the authors received any help in designing the study.

Also, the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the study population could be explained in more detail. It is not clear if only currently enrolled students would be included in the study. It would be important to justify the exclusion criteria.

Acknowledging similar studies (Copeland et al., 2021 and Fawaz et al., 2021) would help readers with a greater context. I would like to suggest the authors to cite the peer-reviewed version of the article titled “Barriers to online learning in the time of COVID-19: A national survey of medical students in the Philippines”. Also, I would like to ask the authors to change the references according to the journal requirements and have a uniform style.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review the study protocol. The protocol is for a mixed-methods study looking at the impact of COVID19 and the subsequent shift to quarantine (stay at home), the implementation of online learning formats, and social media use on college students mental health. The study will provide insight into factors impacting mental health of college students. There are some issues with the study protocol that should be addressed.

Introduction

Paragraph 2.

• If you refer to SARS-CoV-2 as COVID-19, please include swine flu when referring to H1N1.

Paragraph 3.

• It is not clear which pandemic the authors are referring to.

• Include reference examples for the first sentence. P

• rovide examples of how infection and death have "adversely affected" mental health.

• How many people responded to the survey measuring the psychological effects of COVID19 in the Philippines?

Paragraph 4.

• Provide references for the first three sentences.

• Provide details of the studies you reference.

• Final sentence is conflating being infected by COVID19 and suffering from mood and substance disorders - please clarify exactly what is meant.

Paragraph 5.

• University students are not generally accepted as a vulnerable population. Please provide a reference that supports this statement.

• Second sentence - provide the references for the multiple studies.

• Are Chinese university students similar to Filipino college students? Surely there are other studies from other countries that can be included here. Or is the social, cultural, and political situation similar between the Philippines and China?

Paragraph 6.

• Second sentence is not clear. Do you mean that academic performance is associated with student mental health? If so, just say that.

• What is "this" in the sentence: "Online learning poses multiple challenges to this".

• Provide an example of "Students’ various social support systems" that have to adapt.

• In this sentence: "These challenges are alarming because social support has been noted as a critical aspect of mediating acute distress disorder" it's not clear if the statement refers to students or some other population.

• References are needed for the following sentences: "In addition, loneliness has been rising for the past six years amongst this vulnerable demographic. One study showed that being a student is a risk factor for loneliness, exacerbated during the pandemic." Furthermore, please provide greater clarity around the population being discussed.

• The following sentence does not follow the logic from the preceding sentences: "Therefore, online learning must be perceived as an inclusive community and a safe space for peer-to-peer interactions (18)."

Paragraph 7.

• The following sentence needs a reference: "One research recommends clear and focused design elements on accommodating students living with depression."

• The argument presented in this paragraph is not clear.

Paragraph 8

• The first three sentences need references.

• The argument for examining the effect of social media on students mental health is weak and is only presented in the second to last paragraph.

Paragraph 9

• There is no inclusion of social media in this paragraph.

• This paragraph should present a strong argument for the study, including all the factors that are to be included in the study.

Materials and methods

Study aim –

• Aims 1 and 2 are very similar. Aim 1 suggests you are going to describe the sample according to the categories of mental health. This is quite unusual and makes me think that maybe 'stratified is not the correct word for this aim. Perhaps what is meant is that the study aims to describe the characteristics of the sample population including mental health (e.g., depression, anxiety, stress)

• Aim 2 it is not clear if the determination of prevalence is before or post, the subsequent shift to online learning. Please clarify.

• Aim 3. It is not clear what the aim is. Please simplify. It might require breaking this one aim up into 2 or 3.

• Aim 4 Is similar to the last aspect of aim 3.

• Furthermore, the phrase "during the COVID-19 pandemic, quarantine, and subsequent shift to online learning." Is confusing - COVID 19 is current, it's not clear whether all or some of the students are in quarantine, and presumably, they have shifted to online learning (past). Please clarify the state in which the study will be conducted.

Design,

• When is the quarantine period. Please provide dates?

• Population RCY seems like a great way to recruit participants. However, this population may not reflect all college students as RCY are volunteers. Students who volunteer may have different values and attitudes towards mental health, and social justice and adapting to change. The authors must account for this in their study and ensure there are no differences between their RCY participants and the non-member RCY participants on critical factors (e.g., mental health etc).

• It is not clear how random sampling for the KII will be achieved. The reported sampling method reads more like stratified sampling.

Inclusion exclusion criteria

• It is not clear why those who identify as non-binary genders are not included. Why is gender an inclusion/ exclusion criterion?

• The sample size calculation - how was the number of KIIs determined? how data saturation will be determined

Study procedure

• It's not clear how the demographic factors will be collected.

• Variables are not clear (e.g., sickness of loved ones) - do you mean family members? friends? pets? do you mean chronic illness or acute illness?

• What other factors that could affect mental health are you going to measure?

• This statement is not accurate: "The DASS-21 will measure the prevalence of depression, anxiety, and stress-related issues affecting daily life (28)" please correct to more accurately describe the DASS.

• It is not clear how this variable will be measured: "the total time spent on social media (TSSM) per day will be ascertained by querying the participants to provide an estimated time spent daily on social media during and after their online classes." is it the total time in one day, or only during and after class. Why not all day? or why is it only during and after of interest? The assumption is that they will increase their use of social media, but what if their use of social media is the same or less than before the shift to online learning?

• Regarding the KII, it may be country-specific, but it's not clear how social scientists and research assistants facilitation of interviews will be the same quality as psychologists and psychiatrists. How will the difference in skills in interviewing be overcome?

• Will the results of the survey be used to develop interview questions?

Data Analysis

• Given that all the variables are known, the quantitative analysis could be clearer with examples of what the authors mean by 'covariate' and 'possible risk factors.

• Will the analyses be explorational? the literature review implies that some hypotheses may be developed. If so, the analyses should be designed to test those hypotheses.

• How will p-values be adjusted to account for the multiple analyse?

Qualitative data

• Will the themes be developed independently by researchers? how many researchers will be involved in the coding? It is not clear from the description how will triangulation be established. Will multiple authors do the coding of the interview transcripts - independently? Will the results of the survey be used to inform the coding of the interviews?

Ethics and dissemination

• It is still not clear how random sampling will be achieved by the authors for recruitment for KII.

• What will the researchers do if a participants response to the DASS indicates they have clinical levels of Depression, Anxiety or Stress?

Discussion

• References are needed throughout the discussion. For example, "The role of social media is also an important exposure to some college students. Social media exposure to COVID-19 may be considered a contributing factor to college students’ mental well-being, particularly their stress, depression, and anxiety."

Reviewer #3: The title of the protocol is timely and well presented. However, I don't agree on publishing protocols for cross-sectional studies. However, the results of this protocol are expected to add great value for public health.

Reviewer #4: This is just a proposal stage. Some part of the methods section is not well defined. Without any results, it is not suitable for a scientific publication yet.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: 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.

PONE-D-21-17998R1Assessing the Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Shift to Online Learning, and Social Media Use on the Mental Health of College Students in the Philippines: A Mixed-Method Study ProtocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Baja,

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 31 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,

Jianhong Zhou

Associate Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

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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 #4: Partly

**********

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 #4: Partly

**********

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 #4: Yes

**********

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

**********

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

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

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.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

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

Reviewer #1: Appreciate the authors' efforts, they addressed all the concerns adequately.

However, I suggest authors to cite the peer-reviewed version of the article instead of medRxiv.

Good luck with your publication.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this protocol. The authors have made considerable changes to the protocol in response to reviewer comments. There are just a couple of minor points to be addressed.

Paragraph 6 – please include the years that these studies were conducted. Also, as these studies are cross-sectional, it is not entirely accurate to say that there is a growing prevalence (which you could do if there were similar studies conducted years apart on the same population, or a longitudinal study. But these are separate populations and the years have not been presented to the reader). Perhaps just delete ‘growing’

Qualitative data – paragraph 1- The description of the qualitative data is missing some information. For example, at what point will the three qualitative analysts discuss the themes? Will the three analysts do all of the transcripts or will they do a sample to establish consistency before dividing the transcripts? Please confirm whether inductive or deductive logic to the coding approach.

Reviewer #4: -The study is proposed to explore the effect of social media use, online learning upon mental health. It is hard to differentiate wither the effect is due to social media or online learning. (aim 3 and aim 4).

- The study participants (inclusion criteria) also include out-of-school youth as they are including all RCY who agreed.

-

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #4: 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.

Assessing the Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Shift to Online Learning, and Social Media Use on the Mental Health of College Students in the Philippines: A Mixed-Method Study Protocol

PONE-D-21-17998R2

Dear Dr. Baja,

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,

Elisa Panada

Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: 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 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.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

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

Reviewer #1: I am satisfied with the revisions that were made to the manuscript. I endorse this manuscript for publication.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript provides a valid rationale for the proposed study and the study is technically sound. The methodology is feasible and described in detail.

**********

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: No

Reviewer #2: No