Awareness of fifth metatarsal stress fractures among soccer coaches in Japan: A cross-sectional study

Takayuki Miyamori; Masashi Aoyagi; Yu Shimasaki; Masafumi Yoshimura

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0277582

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 16, 2022
21 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Zulkarnain Jaafar, Editor PONE-D-22-27267Awareness of fifth metatarsal stress fractures among soccer coaches in Japan: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Miyamori, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR:Dear Author,1. Please attend to all the reviewer's comments and make the necessary changes.2. Could you provide a few names of potential reviewers for the next round of review. The decision of this manuscript is justified based on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not on its novelty or perceived impact. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by 20th May 2023. 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, Zulkarnain Jaafar Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. [Note: HTML markup is below. 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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: No ****** 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 ****** 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 would recommend few corrections or some of my doubts need comments before the final publication: 1. The authors wrote that they examined the knowledge, however they use the word "awarness" all the time. I do not agree that those words can be used interchangably. So, what was evaluated? 2. How was the questionnaire prepared, the answers....to check knowledge? It is ood to use Likert scale or in some other form of raiting....e.g. to evaluate it. Other way, it can be only said how many people answer on sth. but how deep they knew the meaning of the question? It also influance their awarness.... 3. In the Abstract the sample size os 117, but in Methods is still 150. Please, correct. 4. Some references are quite old...Ref.1 ****** 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 ******** [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.0277582.r001
Revision 1
18 May 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: I would recommend few corrections or some of my doubts need comments before the final publication: Thank you for your comments. We have answered them below. 1. The authors wrote that they examined the knowledge, however they use the word "awarness" all the time. I do not agree that those words can be used interchangably. So, what was evaluated? ⇒Thank you for this question. Considering the study’s purpose and the questionnaire utilised, we believe “awareness” is a more suitable term. Therefore, we changed the term “knowledge” to “awareness” throughout the revised manuscript. 2. How was the questionnaire prepared, the answers....to check knowledge? It is ood to use Likert scale or in some other form of raiting....e.g. to evaluate it. Other way, it can be only said how many people answer on sth. but how deep they knew the meaning of the question? It also influance their awarness.... ⇒Thank you for this question. We have added some comments in Materials and Methods to explain how the questionnaire was developed, as follows: “A computer-based survey was created following a literature review of the injury, treatment, and prevention of MT-5 and a discussion with experienced physical therapists, sports doctors, and sports scientists who were familiar with MT-5. This study’s main interest was to understand differences in the awareness about the injury, treatment, and prevention of MT-5 by license level and coaching environment. Hence, the questionnaire was designed with an emphasis on how many coaches were aware of this information rather than the depth of their knowledge of MT-5.”(p4 lines 73–79). In addition, we realise that this was a limitation of the study. Hence, we have added some comments on the study’s limitations as follows: “Second, the study’s questionnaire was designed to investigate the awareness of MT-5, not the depth of respondents’ understanding of MT-5. Therefore, there may be differences in the level of understanding even among respondents aware of it.” (p10, lines 192–194) 3. In the Abstract the sample size os 117, but in Methods is still 150. Please, correct. ⇒Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised the abstract as follows: “A total of 150 soccer coaches were invited for an original online survey” (p2 lines 21–22) and “Data from 117 coaches were analysed.” (p2 line 25) 4. Some references are quite old...Ref.1 ⇒We have retained reference 1 in the revised manuscript because it defined the “Torg classification.” However, we have changed the place of the reference number in the manuscript as follows: “In particular, zones II and III in the MT-5 Torg classification [1]…” (p3 line 43) Reference 5 (Kavanaugh 1978) has been deleted from the manuscript since reference 5 (Kane 2015) can suffice. (p3 line 52). ＊In addition, we thought it would be better to add the test-retest reliability results. Therefore, we have included an additional comment on the statistical analysis as follows: “The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and kappa statistics were used to measure the degree of agreement between responses from 20 participants to confirm the test-retest reliability of the questionnaire” (p5 lines 95–98) We have also revised the results section as follows: “The ICC and kappa values for the test-retest reliability were excellent (ICC range = 0.88 - 0.98) and moderate to almost perfect (k range = 0.57–0.88), respectively.” (p6 lines 115–117) Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers_TM-5_revised.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r002
23 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Zulkarnain Jaafar, Editor PONE-D-22-27267R1Awareness of fifth metatarsal stress fractures among soccer coaches in Japan: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Miyamori, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR:Dear Author,Please make the necessary corrections based on the reviewer's comments. The decision of this manuscript is justified based on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not on its novelty or perceived impact. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by 22th September 2023. 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, Zulkarnain Jaafar Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: (No Response) ******** 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: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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 #2: 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 #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: Abstract: Line36-38: Suggest to rephrase the sentence- it was unclear Introduction Line 43-45: Suggest to rephrase the sentence to show that the common fracture is at the Zone II and III of the 5th MTB which also known as Jones fracture. Line 46: To confirm reinjury is one of the factors for surgery? Line 54: immobilization of the lateral plantar- pathological or by brace? Line 55-56: suggest to rephrase sentence Line 64-66: is the objective of the study? Materials & Methods The methodology was not very clear. A new questionnaire was created. Validation of the questionnaire was based on the expert committee? Test-retest reliability was done among the coaches? Coaches for test-retest was also involved in the main study? Was the study applied for ethics clearance? Result The result did not answer the objective of the study which want to study the coaches awareness of MT-5, its prevention and treatment. In the result- the correlation was described in detail; however, the prevention and treatment strategies were covered superficially. Discussion Good discussion, but suggest to include other related studies that involved 5th MTB stress fracture Suggest to provide the sample of the online survey as supplement 5MT- not sure if it is acceptable as acronym Too many semicolon (;) May need to check the writing style ****** 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 ******** [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.0277582.r003
Revision 2
30 Aug 2023 Author Response We thank the Editor and the reviewers for their thoughtful suggestions and insights. The manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. The manuscript has been rechecked and the necessary changes have been made in accordance with the reviewers’ suggestions. The revisions incorporated are indicated via tracked changes. The responses to all comments have been prepared in a point-by-point manner and attached herewith. We hope that the responses have addressed all the reviewers’ concerns satisfactorily. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response_to_Reviewers_PROSone 0829.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r004
20 Sep 2023 Decision Letter - Zulkarnain Jaafar, Editor PONE-D-22-27267R2Awareness of fifth metatarsal stress fractures among soccer coaches in Japan: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Miyamori, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Dear Author,Please attend to all of the reviewer's comments and make the necessary changes. The decision of this manuscript is justified based on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not on its novelty or perceived impact. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 04 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. 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, Zulkarnain Jaafar Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 #3: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #4: (No Response) ******** 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: No ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: I Don't Know Reviewer #4: 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 #3: No Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Dear authors, I found this version a completely revised version of your paper based on all previous authors' comments. I think you have addressed all and I recommend acceptance. Reviewer #4: The article highlights important subject. The goals of this work are a reminder for all coaches and researchers to pay attention to the coaches’ awareness of MT-5, its prevention and treatment. After reading the entire manuscript, I was disappointed that the methodology was not very strong. There is uncertainty about important things. Major revision Material and method • The authors have missed something crucial. The study fails to address content validity. Content validity is a crucial aspect of testing or measuring anything. Minor revision Introduction Good introduction! • lines 51-53: Please move the sentence to line 4 to emphasize the incidence. • The prevalence of MT-5 is different in non-athletic men and women and athletes. Boutefnouchet et al (https://doi.org/10.1177/1460408614525738 ). Suggest to add information about gender differences in the introduction. Material and method • Line 80: What do the authors mean by sports doctors? If the authors mean sports medicine physician, suggest to rephrase it. • Lines 93-97: Since one of the objectives of this article was to investigate awareness about MT-5 therapy, the authors neglected to mention it. • Please clarify how the authors assessed MT-5 treatment awareness in the method section. Results • One of the characteristics of the participants was their gender. The authors did not mention any results about it. Please add information about gender distribution. • Lines 130-131: “MT-5 prevention methods were assessed using a free-format question”. Suggest to move this sentence to the material and method section. • Table 1: Last row “preventive training”: the objective was to investigate the awareness of prevention, suggest to rewrite it. • Table 2 and table 3: The authors used “MT-5 recognition” in the title. Suggest to rephrase it to “MT-5 Awareness”. • Please provide the sample of the online survey as supplement. ****** 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 #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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r005
Revision 3
11 Jan 2024 Author Response 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 #3: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #4: (No Response) 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: No 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: I Don't Know Reviewer #4: 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 #3: No Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: 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 #3: Dear authors, I found this version a completely revised version of your paper based on all previous authors' comments. I think you have addressed all and I recommend acceptance. Reviewer #4: The article highlights important subject. The goals of this work are a reminder for all coaches and researchers to pay attention to the coaches’ awareness of MT-5, its prevention and treatment. After reading the entire manuscript, I was disappointed that the methodology was not very strong. There is uncertainty about important things. Major revision Material and method • The authors have missed something crucial. The study fails to address content validity. Content validity is a crucial aspect of testing or measuring anything. Minor revision Introduction Good introduction! • lines 51-53: Please move the sentence to line 4 to emphasize the incidence. • The prevalence of MT-5 is different in non-athletic men and women and athletes. Boutefnouchet et al (https://doi.org/10.1177/1460408614525738 ). Suggest to add information about gender differences in the introduction. Material and method • Line 80: What do the authors mean by sports doctors? If the authors mean sports medicine physician, suggest to rephrase it. • Lines 93-97: Since one of the objectives of this article was to investigate awareness about MT-5 therapy, the authors neglected to mention it. • Please clarify how the authors assessed MT-5 treatment awareness in the method section. Results • One of the characteristics of the participants was their gender. The authors did not mention any results about it. Please add information about gender distribution. • Lines 130-131: “MT-5 prevention methods were assessed using a free-format question”. Suggest to move this sentence to the material and method section. • Table 1: Last row “preventive training”: the objective was to investigate the awareness of prevention, suggest to rewrite it. • Table 2 and table 3: The authors used “MT-5 recognition” in the title. Suggest to rephrase it to “MT-5 Awareness”. • Please provide the sample of the online survey as supplement. 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 #3: No Reviewer #4: No Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: questions_and_answers_20240112.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r006
17 Jan 2024 Decision Letter - Zulkarnain Jaafar, Editor Awareness of fifth metatarsal stress fractures among soccer coaches in Japan: A cross-sectional study PONE-D-22-27267R3 Dear Dr. Miyamori, 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, Zulkarnain Jaafar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r007
Formally Accepted
30 Apr 2024 Acceptance Letter - Zulkarnain Jaafar, Editor PONE-D-22-27267R3 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Miyamori, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Zulkarnain Jaafar Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277582.r008

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .