Barriers and facilitators to anti-retroviral therapy adherence among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: A mixed-methods systematic review and meta-analysis

Londiwe D. Hlophe; Jacques L. Tamuzi; Constance S. Shumba; Peter S. Nyasulu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0276411

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 10, 2022
6 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Nyanyiwe Masingi Mbeye, Editor PONE-D-22-27523Barriers and facilitators to anti-retroviral therapy adherence among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: A mixed-method systematic reviewPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Nyasulu, 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. ============================== 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. 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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. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) Checklist, the authors have managed to include as much information on the checklist as possible (well done). While the authors have discussed how COVID-19 has affected HIV outcomes worldwide, it could be better if they add more literature on how this has affected the outcome of the included studies. Are there any differences in reported outcomes prior to COVID-19? Reviewer #2: This is an important and timely study. The study is done according to the Preferred Reporting Items namely PRISMA statement, STROBE and ENTREQ recommendations. There is great flow of the manuscript. The methods are robust and well triangulated. The findings are very clear. ****** 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: Yes:** Charles Masulani Mwale ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 23 2023 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. 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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 (if provided): [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Review_ Charles Masulani Mwale.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276411.r001
Revision 1
27 Mar 2023 Author Response 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The authors have edited the manuscript and have ensured that it is now in line with the journal’s requirements. 2. "Please identify your study as "Systematic review and meta-analysis" in the title of your study. The authors have edited the title and the study is now identified as a systematic review and meta-analysis. 3. "We note that Figure 2, in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. The map in our manuscript was created with Quantum Geographic information system (QGIS) software. We obtained African countries' shapefiles from a freely accessible database (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/). We geo-referenced the included studies in the shapefile based on their location as described in the table of included studies in our manuscript and joined the two files (shapefile and excel) to create the map. Based on the information provided, this map has not been published elsewhere and does not require permission Reviewer #1 Using the Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) Checklist, the authors have managed to include as much information on the checklist as possible (well done). While the authors have discussed how COVID-19 has affected HIV outcomes worldwide, it could be better if they add more literature on how this has affected the outcome of the included studies. Are there any differences in reported outcomes prior to COVID-19? While COVID-19 has been reported to have affected the HIV outcomes in general, our study could not be used to report on these effects or influences especially because some of the studies even though published post 2019/20, data was collected pre-COVID-19 and thus could be irrelevant in reporting the influence and impact of COVID-19 on adolescents ART adherence. However, authors have included more literature on the effects of COVID-19 on adolescents ART adherence. Reviewer #2 1. Is there any reason why the authors did not consider viral suppression (another key outcome) in their search terms, while it is appearing in the methods section? The authors have included the full search strategy as a supportive file (and viral load suppression and the other key ART outcomes have been included in the search strategy used for data collection. 2. On the results included, only one study was from Malawi studies which is not the same as in the tables. There may be a need to crosscheck for the other countries as well. The results on studied included are disintegrated by the two different studies types (qualitative and quantitative). Therefore, there is one study under qualitative (line 301, Burns 2020) and one under quantitative (line 316, Umar 2019). In total, there are 2 studies from Malawi (one under qualitative studies and the other under quantitative studies). The authors also cross checked the other studies. 3. The discussion could have been broadened to address all the significant results presented in the results section. Its short. Thank you, the authors have included more results in the discussion session including the meta-regression. 4. In the table for the studies included, from identification after removing the duplicates, to screening seems not to add up. The authors have explained the observed discrepancies in lines 294-296 and lines 307-310. Kindly note that in the mixed methods studies, in some studies only one component was included in our analysis as the other component did not meet the eligibility criteria of our study for instance study population not integrated by age group especially in studies on adolescents and children or adolescents and adults. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276411.r002
2 May 2023 Decision Letter - I. Marion Sumari-de Boer, Editor Barriers and facilitators to anti-retroviral therapy adherence among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: A mixed-methods systematic review and meta-analysis PONE-D-22-27523R1 Dear Dr. Nyasulu, 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. 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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 Reviewer #2: 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 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? 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 ****** 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. 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: None, the author have addressed all the comments that I raised in the first review. I think this is good to go and should be published Reviewer #2: My coments have been adressed ****** 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: Moses Banda Aron Reviewer #2: Yes: Charles Masulani-Mwale ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276411.r003
Formally Accepted
5 May 2023 Acceptance Letter - I. Marion Sumari-de Boer, Editor PONE-D-22-27523R1 Barriers and facilitators to anti-retroviral therapy adherence among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa: A mixed-methods systematic review and meta-analysis Dear Dr. Nyasulu: 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. I. Marion Sumari-de Boer Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276411.r004

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