Usage patterns of aromatherapy essential oil among Chinese consumers

Jun Xiao; Satoshi Nakai

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272031

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 12, 2021
23 Feb 2022 Decision Letter - Vineet Kumar Rai, Editor PONE-D-21-39234Usage Patterns of Aromatherapy Essential Oil Among Chinese ConsumersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nakai, 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 Apr 09 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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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. 6. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. 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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 ****** 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: Yes ****** 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: Current manuscript give a good account about the usage pattern of aromatherapy essential oil among Chinese consumers. Table 1, present the number and percentage of users through dermal routs per age groups. if possible to add in the first row of the table Frequency: n(%) instead of repeating the letter N in every row. also, Chi-square should be applied between different age group, at each gender, to evaluate the significance either within or between groups. an overall comment, table 1 should be re-disgned or reformatted to better express your results. table 2, please add the significance and test used in the table materials and methods doesn't include details about the data, either parametric or non parametric, what statistical analysis was used, to evaluate or assess what. also, sample size should presented in the materials and methods part, how many samples (participants) how sample size was calculated and a reference should be included Reviewer #2: The study presents the results of original research. The article needs some revision to be suitable for publication. The general grammar should be revised to enhance clarity and enriched with recent references (2016-2022) ****** 6. 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: Yes:** Benjamin Kingsley Harley [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.0272031.r001
Revision 1
27 Jun 2022 Author Response Responds to the reviewer’s comments: Reviewer #1: 1. Comment: Current manuscript give a good account about the usage pattern of aromatherapy essential oil among Chinese consumers. Table 1, present the number and percentage of users through dermal routs per age groups. if possible to add in the first row of the table Frequency: n(%) instead of repeating the letter N in every row. also, Chi-square should be applied between different age group, at each gender, to evaluate the significance either within or between groups. an overall comment, table 1 should be re-disgned or reformatted to better express your results. table 2, please add the significance and test used in the table. Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that Table 1 should be re-designed. We re-designed Table 1 in Line 185. It is reasonable to use Chi-square test to compare the differences between different age groups, at each gender. And we tried to use Chi-square test to evaluate the significance between or within different age groups at each gender, however, since the female dermal users were overrepresented (N = 457; 92.5% of total dermal users), and even within female dermal users, due to small sample size of female aged 0–14 and 60–70, the results of evaluation seems meaningless. Thus, the results are not shown in this manuscript. Considering Reviewer’s suggestion on adding the significance and test used in the table, we added the Kruskall-Wallis test in the Table footnotes belong to Table 2 in Line 257-259. 2. Comment: materials and methods doesn't include details about the data, either parametric or non parametric, what statistical analysis was used, to evaluate or assess what. Response: We are very sorry for our negligence of giving details on the data, as well as statistical analysis used. Thus, in revised manuscript, we have made correction according to the Reviewer’s comments. Line 141-143, “Data on the type of EOs, exposed body areas, dilution rates of use are treated as non-parametric. And data on frequency of use for each EO is treated as parametric. ” were added. Line 143-145, the statements of “The chi-squared or Fisher’s test was conducted to compare the differences in percentages of users per age groups.” were corrected as “The chi-squared or Fisher’s test was conducted to compare the differences in percentages of users on the type of EOs, exposed body area, and dilution rates of use across age groups. ” Line 153-155, the statements of “The Kruskall-Wallis test was conducted to compare frequencies per age and per type of EO among females.” were corrected as “The Kruskall-Wallis test was conducted to compare difference in frequencies of use per age and per type of EO among females.” 3. Comment: also, sample size should presented in the materials and methods part, how many samples (participants) how sample size was calculated and a reference should be included? Response: It is really true as Reviewer suggested that we should explain the sample size in the material and methods parts, thus we corrected it as following: Line 79, “ there are approximately 1,500 EO consumers registered to share” were added to explain the potential sample size. Special thanks to you for your good comments. Reviewer #2: 1. Comment: The study presents the results of original research. The article needs some revision to be suitable for publication. The general grammar should be revised to enhance clarity and enriched with recent references (2016-2022). Response: As Reviewer suggested, we revised manuscript to fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria, and we also added three recent references which were published in 2019, 2018, and 2021, respectively in Line 45: [8, 9] and Line 343: [32]. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: rebuttal letter.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272031.r002
13 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Vineet Kumar Rai, Editor Usage Patterns of Aromatherapy Essential Oil Among Chinese Consumers PONE-D-21-39234R1 Dear Dr. Nakai, 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, Vineet Kumar Rai, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272031.r003
Formally Accepted
3 Aug 2022 Acceptance Letter - Vineet Kumar Rai, Editor PONE-D-21-39234R1 Usage Patterns of Aromatherapy Essential Oil Among Chinese Consumers Dear Dr. Nakai: 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. Vineet Kumar Rai Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272031.r004

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