A stakeholder engagement strategy for an ongoing research program in rural dementia care: Stakeholder and researcher perspectives

Debra Morgan; Julie Kosteniuk; Megan E. O’Connell; Norma J. Stewart; Andrew Kirk; Allison Cammer; Vanina Dal Bello-Haas; Duane P. Minish; Valerie Elliot; Melanie Bayly; Amanda Froehlich Chow; Joanne Bracken; Edna Parrott; Tanis Bronner

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0274769

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 29, 2021
3 May 2022 Decision Letter - Sara Rubinelli, Editor Transfer Alert This paper was transferred from another journal. As a result, its full editorial history (including decision letters, peer reviews and author responses) may not be present. PONE-D-21-34146A stakeholder engagement strategy for an ongoing research program in rural dementia care: Stakeholder and researcher perspectivesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Morgan, 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. Bothe the reviewers acknowledged the overall quality of the paper and the relevance of the topic. However, they pointed to some important revisions, including the reduction of details that make the paper difficult to read. 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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: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: 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: This is generally a well-written manuscript that reports on the laudable goal of stimulating participatory research involving a broad range of stakeholders involved in rural dementia research and care over many years. My major concern is that a substantial proportion of the manuscript reads like an organisational report, rather than the product of systematic research. The paper would benefit from a clear early section about the research methodology and how this was designed to answer specific research questions, with some justification/rationale around the mixed methods approach. I would suggest the authors have a close look at sections of the paper such as Table 1 and 2 as to whether they fit in a research report. Table 3 may benefit with linkages to relevant research papers as well as outcomes that affect delivery of care in a rural setting. I am also concerned that some of the data presented, particularly evaluation data, was deemed exempt from ethics committee consideration. Was this because this was for internal evaluation purposes initially and/or were participants aware that data may be reported? It would be useful for the authors to consider issues of bias and motivation in their reporting. Clearly, those attending would have been highly motivated in this area? In addition, it should be made clear whether it is RaDAR team that comprises the authorship of the article. Were any of the analyses conducted by researchers who were not engaged in RaDAR or the summit? I note the absence of any negative themes or quotes, which may well be the case, but it would be good to hear more about this paper’s research approach to reduce bias. Reviewer #2: The work reported in this paper is very informative and of high relevance. The paper is very well and clearly written. However, I would strongly recommend the authors to review the paper and reduce it substantially in length. Please consider a more concise writing style and review whether the amount of detail provided in the current version of the manuscript is really necessary for the optimal communication of the message. As I mention, given the importance of the message, it would be best if the length and amount of detail provided does not discourage potentially interested readers. ****** 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: 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.0274769.r001
Revision 1
17 Aug 2022 Author Response RESPONSE TO REVIEWS (this information also provided as a separate file that I uploaded with the revised manuscript). The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments on the manuscript. We appreciate the opportunity to revise the paper and hope that we have addressed their recommendations to their satisfaction. A. 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. This has been done. 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. …If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. This has been done. Consent was waived by the ethics committee because the study was deemed program evaluation. However, Summit participants were informed that the evaluations could be used for publications. The evaluations were completed anonymously. 3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received in the ‘Funding Information’ section. This was done. The information is included in the cover letter as requested. 4. We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. Funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments or other areas of your manuscript. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Please include your amended statements within your cover letter. We have removed funding information from the Acknowledgements and included it in the cover letter. 5. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results can be found. Upon re-submitting, 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. We will update your Data Availability statement. The original submission stated that the data were provided as Supporting Information Files attached to the submission. This information is included in the cover letter. 7. Please amend your list of authors on the manuscript to ensure that each author is linked to an affiliation. All authors have an affiliation except for a family caregiver (EP) who does not have an affiliation as she is retired and not linked to any organization. B. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer #1: This is generally a well-written manuscript that reports on the laudable goal of stimulating participatory research involving a broad range of stakeholders involved in rural dementia research and care over many years. My major concern is that a substantial proportion of the manuscript reads like an organisational report, rather than the product of systematic research. The paper would benefit from a clear early section about the research methodology and how this was designed to answer specific research questions, with some justification/rationale around the mixed methods approach. Thank you for these comments. We agree that a statement about the methodology should have been included and have added this information at the beginning of the Methods section (Page 8, starting line 195). The more organizational aspects of the Summit in tables have been moved to Supporting Information files (see below). I would suggest the authors have a close look at sections of the paper such as Table 1 and 2 as to whether they fit in a research report. Table 3 may benefit with linkages to relevant research papers as well as outcomes that affect delivery of care in a rural setting. Based on this suggestion, and the recommendation of Reviewer 2 to remove some of the detail and reduce the length of the manuscript, we have removed Tables 1 – 3 and Box 2 from the manuscript. These tables are now included as Supporting Information files S1 (Summit components and their purpose), S2 (Example of Summit small group engagement sessions), S3 (how Summit differs from a typical conference), S4 (Interactive small group sessions focus and outcomes). Because of the gap in the engagement literature regarding the structure and processes of engagement strategies for ongoing research programs, we feel it is important that readers have access to this information. These structure and processes evolved in response to stakeholder feedback and are linked to stakeholder satisfaction with the Summit and the outcomes reported in the thematic analysis. In Table S2 the term “outcome” in one of the headings was changed to “purpose” to more accurately reflect the content of that column. I am also concerned that some of the data presented, particularly evaluation data, was deemed exempt from ethics committee consideration. Was this because this was for internal evaluation purposes initially and/or were participants aware that data may be reported? Yes the University ethics committee deemed the evaluations exempt from ethics review because it was collected for program improvement. Participants were informed that the evaluations may be used for reports and publications. It would be useful for the authors to consider issues of bias and motivation in their reporting. Clearly, those attending would have been highly motivated in this area? In addition, it should be made clear whether it is the RaDAR team that comprises the authorship of the article. Were any of the analyses conducted by researchers who were not engaged in RaDAR or the summit? I note the absence of any negative themes or quotes, which may well be the case, but it would be good to hear more about this paper’s research approach to reduce bias. Summit participants were invited based on their interest and expertise in dementia care, or were self-identified individuals who requested to attend, so they were highly motivated. The authors are RaDAR researchers, except for a family caregiver and rural nurse practitioner who have both had a long association with the RaDAR team and are regular Summit attendees. Many Summit participants attend every year and may be more comfortable reporting where improvements could be made, but it is possible that new participants would be less likely to make negative comments. Most of the “negative“ findings were related to organizational aspects such as Summit dates or start and end times, keeping to schedule so there is time for discussion, suggesting additional stakeholder groups to invite, etc, and these are noted in the Challenges section. Potential bias in the analysis was mitigated by the team approach to the analysis of themes, and inclusion of non-RaDAR members. Reviewer #2: The work reported in this paper is very informative and of high relevance. The paper is very well and clearly written. However, I would strongly recommend the authors to review the paper and reduce it substantially in length. Please consider a more concise writing style and review whether the amount of detail provided in the current version of the manuscript is really necessary for the optimal communication of the message. As I mention, given the importance of the message, it would be best if the length and amount of detail provided does not discourage potentially interested readers. Thank you for your comments, and the recommendation for a more concise paper. As noted under Reviewer 1’s second point above, we have removed 8 pages of detail by relocating Tables 1-3 and Box 1 from the text to Supporting Information Files and removing some text throughout the manuscript. We agree that these changes make the paper more accessible, while still providing interested readers with the specifics regarding Summit organization and content in the optional Supporting Information files. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviews (Aug 14, 2022) .docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274769.r002
4 Sep 2022 Decision Letter - Sara Rubinelli, Editor A stakeholder engagement strategy for an ongoing research program in rural dementia care: Stakeholder and researcher perspectives PONE-D-21-34146R1 Dear Dr. Morgan, 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, Sara Rubinelli Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 4. 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 ****** 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 ****** 6. 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: (No Response) ****** 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: Yes: James Vickers ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274769.r003
Formally Accepted
12 Sep 2022 Acceptance Letter - Sara Rubinelli, Editor PONE-D-21-34146R1 A stakeholder engagement strategy for an ongoing research program in rural dementia care: Stakeholder and researcher perspectives Dear Dr. Morgan: 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. Sara Rubinelli Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274769.r004

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