PONE-D-20-37652

Social network responses to victims of potentially traumatic events: A systematic review using Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Saan,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Jamie Males

Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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

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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

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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: I consider the authors have accomplished the reviewer´s comments and they have provided an improved version.

Just the first figure they have attached is not very clean (please attached a figure with better resolution).

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. This is a systematic review of qualitative studies, aiming to answer to the following research question: How do adult victims of violence, homicides, accidents and disasters experience responses of informal support providers in the aftermath of the event, and what are similarities and/or differences in experiences across various victimization groups according to qualitative studies?

Among the strengths of this study is an original and worthwhile aim (to synthetize qualitative studies on social support after trauma, with a focus on differences sources of social support) and inclusion of a large number of studies. I sincerely applaud the authors’ interest in contributing with something new in this field, and I agree that we need new development both within theoretical and methodological approaches to social support. At the time I read this manuscript, it has received feedback from two previous reviewers, and from what I can judge, this feedback has been taken seriously and has probably increased the quality of the manuscript.

I still have some major concerns:

1) The introduction does not provide a clear rationale for why it is necessary to study different groups of victims together. On what theoretical or empirical grounds do you expect differences in experience of information support providers? The introduction somewhat unfocused and includes various references suggesting that “it’s complicated” rather than a clear rationale for why your study has to be done.

2) The results are difficult to discern – there are many details and few superordinate take-home messages.

3) The discussion should be more connected to the theory and empirical studies mentioned in the introduction.

More detailed feedback:

Abstract:

- The background lacks an explicit and substantial objective – what is the research question of this paper? “Organizing and summarizing studies on” is a little passive. What does this study aim to teach us something about?

- I would like the findings part to be more specific and superordinate.

- I did not understand this sentence: “Various responses were experienced across victimization groups while others were more trauma-specific.”

- This sentence does not provide substantial information: “The synthesis provides several directions for future research and implications for victim assistance policies.” (which directions and implications do you mean?)

Introduction:

- The authors have chosen to base their study on Hobfoll’s conservation resource theory. Does this theory provide any input that can shed light on the research question? Please outline.

- The authors refers to several snippets of the social support literature. But I find the overall argumentation for the research question weak – do you expect that different types of support is more prevalent after some types of traumatic events – for example – people are more emotionally supportive after terrorism than after sexual abuse? Or that people offer more instrumental support after natural disasters than after sexual abuse? Or that people receive more unhelpful responses after family violence than after accidents? Please outline this link.

Methods:

- I find that the authors have described their methods in a thorough and accurate way.

Results:

- The four paragraphs based on the four topics are nicely written, but I would like some more substantial overall extractions. There are many details here, and the answer to the research question is not clearly presented.

- The tables are somewhat intimidating, at least for this reader. I would consider place table 2 in supplemental materials, and I would try to simplify table 4. It is very extensive and it is difficult to read. It looks more like an evidence gap map (https://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/cms/Default.aspx?tabid=3790 ) than a table with substantial results. So I look at it and I wonder: What can we learn from this? Perhaps this version of this table could be put in the supplemental materials as well?

Discussion:

- I am unsure what your main findings were. After you have reminded us about your research question, please formulate 3-5 main findings that you will discuss.

- I would like to see a discussion linking your findings to the theory and empirical studies you mention in the introduction, and integrate your findings it better in the literature. For example, I find it very interesting that you found that peers was the only support provider not mentioned as unhelpful. How would you interpret this in light of the literature showing that psychological debriefing after trauma are potentially harmful? Should we arrange for people to meet and share their experiences, or should we not?

- Please also write explicitly what your contribution to the literature was. I think that several of your findings could be results from a quantitative study as well.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Marianne Skogbrott Birkeland

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PONE-D-20-37652R1Social network responses to victims of potentially traumatic events: A systematic review using Qualitative Evidence SynthesisPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Saan,

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.

I addition to the final minor comments provided by Reviewer 2 below, please address the following points in your response:

In the Introduction, lines 132 0 136 (“Qualitative PTE-related research on social support…”), please include some references to the studies you are referring to here.

In the introduction, paragraph 5 (lines 120 – 136), the authors refer to some PTE-relevant quantitative and qualitative studies that have examined social supports, but only state what they’ve focused on, rather than what they’ve found. Please provide a brief description of the main, collective findings from these studies and highlight what gaps remain.

In the ‘study selection’ section, lines 277 – 286, please include how many people were involved in the title/abstract screening and the full-text screening, it would also be useful to include the initials of the authors who undertook the screening at each stage. If possible, please also include what level of inter-rater agreement was reached for each stage, and how disputes in decisions were resolved.

In the Discussion, lines 642 – 644, it is unnecessary to restate the results in terms of number of papers found (e.g., “The synthesis identified 17 specific types of supportive responses, 12 non-supportive responses, …”). Please remove this. There are a few other sections within the Discussion where the number of papers are stated, and could be removed.

I would also caution the authors to be wary that they are not simply restating the Results within the Discussion, but instead are discussing what the results mean in the context of what literature has been previously published. A final review of the Discussion by the authors might reveal section where the word count could be cut down by removing the restating of results.

The ‘Challenging the measures of social support’ section in the Discussion reads more as an ‘implications’ section, rather than highlighting a gap in research – so perhaps make it its won implication section. The authors use ‘Furthermore’ a lot in this section, it feels quite repetitive and impedes the flow of the discussion. Please consider removing the ‘furthermores’.   

Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 03 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,

Michelle Torok, Ph.D.

Academic 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. 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 #2: All comments have been addressed

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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 #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

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 #2: Yes

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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 #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 #2: Thank you for revising the paper in line with my suggestions. I find that the manuscript is much improved, in particular Table 4 which is now much more readable and informative. One potential remaining issue may be that literature search was updated the last time in February 2019, which is 3.5 years ago now. I will let it be up to the journal editor to decide whether there is a need to update it again.

Otherwise I only have minor issues that I spotted when I read through the paper now.

1. Abstract: The first sentence in the conclusion repeats what is already in the methods and I do not understand the second part. I would omit this sentence.

2. Table 3: Should it be “victims of ebola virus disease” rather than just “ebola virus disease”?

3. Table 3: It is not clear what “Duma part I – introduction a nd method section” mean.

4. Table 4: Please indicate what the numbers refer to in the title or note of the table (all tables should be self-explanatory).

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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 #2: No

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[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.

Social network responses to victims of potentially traumatic events: A systematic review using Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

PONE-D-20-37652R2

Dear Dr. Saan,

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.

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Kind regards,

Michelle Torok, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: