Stress, subjective wellbeing and self-knowledge in higher education teachers: A pilot study through bodyfulness approaches

Rosa-María Rodríguez-Jiménez; Manuel Carmona; Sonia García-Merino; Begoña Díaz-Rivas; Israel J. Thuissard-Vasallo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278372

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 3, 2021
15 Jun 2022 Decision Letter - Katrien Janin, Editor PONE-D-21-31772 Stress, subjective wellbeing and self-knowledge in higher education teachers: a proposal for intervention through bodyfulness approaches PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Jiménez, 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. Based on the reviewer's comments, provided in full within this email, please shorten and re-structure the Discussion section, generally reduce wordiness, combine the outcomes of the qualitative and quantitative approaches, and address the study limitations within the manuscript. Furthermore, the manuscript would also benefit from separately reporting the parts that relevant to the ‘development’ of the intervention, and the elements that involve the ‘delivery (see comment reviewer 1) Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 29 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, Katrien Janin, PhD Staff 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 2. Peer review at PLOS ONE is not double-blinded (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/editorial-and-peer-review-process). For this reason, authors should include in the revised manuscript all the information removed for blind review. 3. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For more information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 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: 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 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: It was a pleasure reading the authors’ work and in their detailed description of their intervention. However, the manuscript requires further re-writing. -First of all, the authors need to provide a shorter and better structured Discussion section. Currently the section is more than 10-pages long and parts of it may be suitable for a dissertation chapter but offer little value to the discussion of the findings of their paper. For example, their opening paragraphs (lines 669-687) in their Discussion focus on their methodology rationale that would be a better bit to their methodology section. Similarly, the first few pages in the Discussion they go on to be a presentation of methodology-related relevant literature that may again be a good fit to a dissertation’s methodology chapter but it offers little to the Discussion of the research findings. My advice to the authors is to reduce significantly the length of that section. They can start with a couple of paragraphs discussing their research objectives and methodology decisions within the scope of relevant literature and the move on to discussing their findings in relation to other studies in teachers or application of these interventions in other populations -The title of the manuscript mentions that this is a “proposal of intervention”, however their methodology, and results section describe what may be best defined as a “pilot” study. If the authors indeed aimed to report the development of an intervention, then they’d need t restructure the paper to clearly show what parts are relevant to the “development” of the intervention and what elements involve its “delivery”. Reviewer #2: The current study has adopted a mixed method approach – using experimental data and content analysis – to study the efficacy of two intervention on stress, subjective well-being, and self knowledge of higher education teachers. The authors have wisely opted for mixed method considering the limitation of the study with only quantitative assessment, but effort is needed to combine the outcomes of quantitative and qualitative domains and present it as complimentary to each other. Although the attempt was elaborate with many variables, the study apparently has many limitations that need to be addressed before publication. Especially the variables described at different parts of the manuscript are not congruent. Eg. The study measures listed contain FFMQ, to assess mindfulness, but nowhere in the manuscript the authors have mentioned about mindfulness. Similarly, the variables measured and variables described as the outcomes are not the same. Further comments are added here. Title: Why there are two titles given (1-6)? Abstract: Wordiness can be reduced in the abstract. Eg. in lines 20-22, the word ‘theirs’ is repeated five times, which is unnecessary. Clearly state the number of groups, ie. two experimental groups and one control group with number of participants in each. Introduction: In line 57, please include the in-text citation apart from the numbering. Materials and Methods: lines 163-166 – Please explain what PARQ+ did assess. “participants should 166 not have lengthy practice with any of the tools proposed in the program” – was this another exclusion criterion? (Then better to mention exclusion criteria) Does it mean that the participants should not already have lengthy practices? Some more clarity is required here as what the authors have meant, since the intervention is not elaborated in the manuscript so far. Also please define lengthy. What was the duration beyond which a practice was considered lengthy? Lines 171-173: please mention the number of participants in all three groups. You may write “Group 1 (N=?). Line 175: instead vaguely mentioning “several physiological variables”, please clearly describe all the physiological variables assessed. Lines 177-179: “The levels of body awareness, subjective wellbeing and perceived stress level were measured using five validated psychometric tests…”. Why five assessment tools were used to assess three variables mentioned? Also pleas explain why there are seven psychological assessment tools listed under ‘Measures’ and not five? Also the measures described in lines 219-285 do not correspond to the variables mentioned in line 177-179. Eg. FFMQ was administered, but assessment of mindfulness is not given in the variables listed in lines 177-179. Line 181: did the authors mean “Participants filled….” Also, five questionnaires? Please explain why seven are listed under Measures. Line 230: Couldn’t find the full form of MET. If you haven’t called it out (mentioning the full form along with acronym at the first usage of an acronym) before, please do so. The selection procedures for the recruitment of participants to the experimental condition can be represented using a CONSORT flow diagram. Were there any dropouts? And why? The recruitment process of participants for the qualitative part of the study is not clear. Also please describe more about the need and procedures of qualitative data collection. Please include a brief description of the administration of both interventions including who have administered both and if the differences in expertise could be a reason for some of the results obtained. Results: Lines 356-357: “None of the potential participants who responded to the PARQ+ were excluded from the study”. Why? Also please clearly describe the outcomes of any assessment tools you have used to screen the participants (as exclusion criteria). Results require substantial changes. Other than the figures, please include tables containing: 1) Comparison of baseline scores of all three groups on all variables under study. You can use ANOVA, if the data fulfill the parametric test requirements. At least for the variables where it is normally distributed, please report ANOVA results. Also, if the data is not normally distributed, please explain the possible reasons. 2) Comparison of post-test scores of all three groups on all variables under study. Here also, ANOVA should be the first option. 3) T-test result comparing the pre-post results of all variables for all three groups. Eg. Pre-post comparison of mindfulness scores of experimental Group 1. 31 individuals have participated in the quantitative part of the study, but only 22 are there in the qualitative part. Please explain why with the selection procedure. Discussion: Line 673 says sample size was 33, but earlier it was given as 31 for quantitative and 22 for qualitative. Please clarify. Line 688: the meaning of the sub-title is not clear. Please include the limitations of the study. Conclusion: “In our opinion, a combination of both programs could provide a safe framework that would help to increase the levels of teacher wellbeing and give them resources to improve interaction with students, given that in education the quality of interpersonal relationships is an important part of the teaching-learning process”. Both the interventions share many common components as displayed in a table earlier. So what exactly did the authors mean by the application of both program together? Are you proposing a novel intervention? Have you considered the possibility of the outcomes measures of the current study and the outcomes of the interventions being different, thus producing not much significant results? Another major issue is that, since there already are many highly effective interventions to reduce stress and enhance well-being, what is the purpose of these new bodyfulness interventions? Even the study results do not support much significant impact. So how do the authors justify its contribution to the existing literature? ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes: Allen Joshua George ******** [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: COMMENTS.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278372.r001
Revision 1
11 Aug 2022 Author Response We greatly appreciate the time taken to review the article and the suggestions made. Responses are indicated in this document in red and changes to the manuscript and additional material are provided in accompanying documents. Reviewer #1: It was a pleasure reading the authors’ work and in their detailed description of their intervention. However, the manuscript requires further re-writing. First of all, the authors need to provide a shorter and better structured Discussion section. Currently the section is more than 10-pages long and parts of it may be suitable for a dissertation chapter but offer little value to the discussion of the findings of their paper. For example, their opening paragraphs (lines 669-687) in their Discussion focus on their methodology rationale that would be a better bit to their methodology section. Similarly, the first few pages in the Discussion they go on to be a presentation of methodology-related relevant literature that may again be a good fit to a dissertation’s methodology chapter but it offers little to the Discussion of the research findings. My advice to the authors is to reduce significantly the length of that section. They can start with a couple of paragraphs discussing their research objectives and methodology decisions within the scope of relevant literature and the move on to discussing their findings in relation to other studies in teachers or application of these interventions in other populations We have re-written the discussion section following reviewer’s indications. The title of the manuscript mentions that this is a “proposal of intervention”, however their methodology, and results section describe what may be best defined as a “pilot” study. If the authors indeed aimed to report the development of an intervention, then they’d need t restructure the paper to clearly show what parts are relevant to the “development” of the intervention and what elements involve its “delivery”. We intended to carry out a pilot study, so we have included some modifications to clarify this point in the title, abstract, introduction and methodology (lines 27-31,155, 170-179 and 191-200). Also some modifications have been introduced in methodology and results looking for more clarity. Reviewer #2: The current study has adopted a mixed method approach – using experimental data and content analysis – to study the efficacy of two intervention on stress, subjective well-being, and self-knowledge of higher education teachers. The authors have wisely opted for mixed method considering the limitation of the study with only quantitative assessment, but effort is needed to combine the outcomes of quantitative and qualitative domains and present it as complimentary to each other. Although the attempt was elaborate with many variables, the study apparently has many limitations that need to be addressed before publication. Especially the variables described at different parts of the manuscript are not congruent. Eg. The study measures listed contain FFMQ, to assess mindfulness, but nowhere in the manuscript the authors have mentioned about mindfulness. Similarly, the variables measured and variables described as the outcomes are not the same. We have better explained the variables and the reasons why a mixed approach was chosen (see lines 192-202; lines 246-2502) Further comments are added here. Title: Why there are two titles given (1-6)? The title was adjusted to the requirements of this journal. It is the journal format. Abstract: Wordiness can be reduced in the abstract. Eg. in lines 20-22, the word ‘theirs’ is repeated five times, which is unnecessary. We have rewritten the abstract according the reviewer’s suggestions. Clearly state the number of groups, ie. two experimental groups and one control group with number of participants in each. Done Introduction: In line 57, please include the in-text citation apart from the numbering. Done (see line 62 now) Materials and Methods: lines 163-166 – Please explain what PARQ+ did assess. “participants should 166 not have lengthy practice with any of the tools proposed in the program” – was this another exclusion criterion? (Then better to mention exclusion criteria) Does it mean that the participants should not already have lengthy practices? Some more clarity is required here as what the authors have meant, since the intervention is not elaborated in the manuscript so far. Also please define lengthy. What was the duration beyond which a practice was considered lengthy? We have tried to explain better according reviewer’s suggestion (see lines 170-172). PARQ + is a 7-step self-screening tool that is typically used to determine the safety or possible risks of exercising based on the health history, current symptoms, and risk factors. It is designed to identify the small number of adults for whom physical activity may be inappropriate. If a person answers yes to one or more questions, the individual should complete a thorough follow-up of medical questions and consult a physician about beginning physical activity. We consider a lengthy practice any physical activity similar to those implemented in the project practiced during at least six months on a weekly basis. Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we have introduced this as an exclusion criterion (see lines 172-174). Lines 171-173: please mention the number of participants in all three groups. You may write “Group 1 (N=?). Done (now this information is in lines 181-183). Line 175: instead vaguely mentioning “several physiological variables”, please clearly describe all the physiological variables assessed. Done (see now lines 197-199). Lines 177-179: “The levels of body awareness, subjective wellbeing and perceived stress level were measured using five validated psychometric tests…”. Why five assessment tools were used to assess three variables mentioned? Also pleas explain why there are seven psychological assessment tools listed under ‘Measures’ and not five? Also the measures described in lines 219-285 do not correspond to the variables mentioned in line 177-179. Eg. FFMQ was administered, but assessment of mindfulness is not given in the variables listed in lines 177-179. We assessed five psychological variables. Following the reviewer’s suggestion we have detailed these five variables in lines 246-252 (previously lines 177-179). There are no adapted tools for body movement awareness interventions, reason why authors decided to use five validated psychometric tests, as they covered different aspects on which the programs could have an impact. Line 181: did the authors mean “Participants filled….” Also, five questionnaires? Please explain why seven are listed under Measures. Participants filled two questionnaires about physical activity. One of them, the PARQ+ was used as exclusion criteria in the recruitment phase. Five questionnaires were used for psychological variables. See lines 246-252. Line 230: Couldn’t find the full form of MET. If you haven’t called it out (mentioning the full form along with acronym at the first usage of an acronym) before, please do so. Done. We had included the full form in Figure 1, but in fact we had not included the first usage of the acronym, so we have resolved this including the full form along with acronym (line 264). The selection procedures for the recruitment of participants to the experimental condition can be represented using a CONSORT flow diagram. Were there any dropouts? And why? Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we have included a CONSORT flow diagram as Figure 1 showing the recruitment process. Accordingly, we have renumbered all figures. The recruitment process of participants for the qualitative part of the study is not clear. Also please describe more about the need and procedures of qualitative data collection. There is no different procedure for recruiting participants for the qualitative part. They are the same participants. A slightly change in line 347 tries to clarify this. We have also included this information in the CONSORT flow diagram. Please include a brief description of the administration of both interventions including who have administered both and if the differences in expertise could be a reason for some of the results obtained. We have reinforced the explanation requested about the expertise levels of the professionals in charge of the different programs (lines 218-220). We have also included it as a potential limitation (lines 1035-1039). Results: Lines 356-357: “None of the potential participants who responded to the PARQ+ were excluded from the study”. Why? Also please clearly describe the outcomes of any assessment tools you have used to screen the participants (as exclusion criteria). We have added more details in lines 392-396 (previously lines 356-357). The screening tool requires that the participant answers YES to at least one of the 7 initial questions of the test in order to continue with further questions and suggest a medical check-up before doing any kind of physical activity. This was not the case as all participants answered NO to all 7 initial questions. Results require substantial changes. Other than the figures, please include tables containing: 1) Comparison of baseline scores of all three groups on all variables under study. You can use ANOVA, if the data fulfill the parametric test requirements. At least for the variables where it is normally distributed, please report ANOVA results. Also, if the data is not normally distributed, please explain the possible reasons. We have included the results of ANOVA pre-test in the manuscript as Table 5. We have renumbered the rest of the tables accordingly 2) Comparison of post-test scores of all three groups on all variables under study. Here also, ANOVA should be the first option. We have included the results of ANOVA post-test as a Supplementary file S3. 3) T-test result comparing the pre-post results of all variables for all three groups. Eg. Pre-post comparison of mindfulness scores of experimental Group 1. We have included the results of T-test in the Supplementary file S3 to complement the figures and text. 31 individuals have participated in the quantitative part of the study, but only 22 are there in the qualitative part. Please explain why with the selection procedure. There was a typo mistake in the number. Correct number is 21. Only the participants who participated in the interventions (group 2 and 3, n=11 and n=10, respectively) wrote reflexive diaries (see lines 505-506). We have also added this information in the CONSORT diagram (Figure 1). Discussion: Line 673 says sample size was 33, but earlier it was given as 31 for quantitative and 22 for qualitative. Please clarify. That was a typo mistake. Total number of participants for the three groups were 31. Only the participants who participated in the interventions (group 2 and 3, n=11 and n=10, respectively) wrote reflexive diaries (see lines 505-506). We have clarified this in the text and through a CONSORT diagram (Figure 1). Line 688: the meaning of the sub-title is not clear. The sub-title follows the format requirements stablished by the journal. Please include the limitations of the study. We have reinforced the limitations of the study in lines 1015-1042. Conclusion: “In our opinion, a combination of both programs could provide a safe framework that would help to increase the levels of teacher wellbeing and give them resources to improve interaction with students, given that in education the quality of interpersonal relationships is an important part of the teaching-learning process”. Both the interventions share many common components as displayed in a table earlier. So what exactly did the authors mean by the application of both program together? Are you proposing a novel intervention? Have you considered the possibility of the outcomes measures of the current study and the outcomes of the interventions being different, thus producing not much significant results? We have modified the text to try to better explain our point of view. We show differences in two mind-body approaches. We believe that a successful intervention could take advantage of the strengths of both approaches by combining resources from both. In fact, we have carried out another study with engineering students in which we combined the sequential structure of Hatha Yoga with creative movement, play and symbolism in a relational context provided by Dance Movement Therapy (https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12020111). Another major issue is that, since there already are many highly effective interventions to reduce stress and enhance well-being, what is the purpose of these new bodyfulness interventions? Even the study results do not support much significant impact. So how do the authors justify its contribution to the existing literature? Dance movement therapy is not a new bodyfulness intervention. Its origin is in the 1940 in United States and there are many evidences about its effectivity in mental health. The novelty of this paper lies in its introduction in higher education that until now is scarce. The relational component, not included in others approaches, justify the introduction of this approach in education. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278372.r002
19 Sep 2022 Decision Letter - Maria Armaou, Editor PONE-D-21-31772R1Stress, subjective wellbeing and self-knowledge in higher education teachers: a pilot study through bodyfulness approachesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Jiménez, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 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, Maria Armaou, PhD Guest 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. Additional Editor Comments: Thank you for submitting a revision of your manuscript. I am the designated Guest Editor to handle this document and I was also part of the first round of the review process. It is clear that the quality of the manuscript has substantially improved and the authors have done a great work addressing the comments raised in the review process. I am satisfied with the authors’ response and revisions to my comments and especially regarding the material that needed to be presented in different sections which allowed a better evaluation of the manuscript. However, there are still some remaining issues which I believe can be easily amended: -Currently, the authors do not clearly signpost their outcome measures. Just as the authors explain in their response they used a set of questionnaires to measure specific psychological variables. My recommendation is to rename the title “Measures” (if possible) to “Outcome measures” and the processed to title the scales used as “Quantitative Measures” - Is it possible to break-down the study objectives? Currently in line 155 only the aim of the pilot study is provided along with a reference in lines 159-162 to the differences between the two approaches. -The main remaining weakness of the paper is that it offers little insight on the necessity of the qualitative data. Were those data meant to address a specific separate research question? If yes, it would be useful to add it at the end of the introduction section. If, though, they are complementary then the authors would need to elaborate a bit on how they are combined. -I found very helpful the authors’ link to another piece of their work, within which they mention that they conducted “An experimental pre-post design with a control group was combined with an exploratory qualitative approach”. Does that description also apply to the current study? If yes then I would recommend to rephrase it slightly and use that to describe the current study. Similarly, it would help to separate between “Quantitative measures” and “Qualitative Exploration”. -In their previous paper that the authors cite in their response to reviewers they mention that “a structured warm up was designed following the characteristics Hatha Yoga Is that an example of combining the two approaches? If yes, then I would recommend adding that argument and possibly pick up on findings from their current study (one example would be enough) on how one could go to combine other elements of those two approaches. -The authors report that there were some differences in the effects of the two approaches, which was also evident in their qualitative analysis. It would be useful to read what this could possibly mean for the content of future interventions and their targeted outcomes. I believe that they have pointed towards that that in lines 1041-1044: “Furthermore, the choice of assessment instruments seems to be more appropriate for the HY approach. In future work, it would be interesting to incorporate instruments that capture relational aspects as they are essential in the state of life satisfaction, well-being and self-knowledge of the individual”. For this reason, it would be useful to add a sentence in the discussion commenting on the nature of the instruments they used in this study and possibly highlight that the qualitative exploration signals possibly the need to use in future feasibility study other types of outcome measures. -Finally, I would like to pick up on the authors’ response that “The novelty of this paper lies in its introduction in higher education that until now is scarce. The relational component, not included in others approaches, justify the introduction of this approach in education.” I believe that this is an important statement that should be added at the end of the introduction. Furthermore, I think it would be greatly beneficial if the authors reflect on other factors that may influence or impact on intervention implementation or effectiveness within higher education. Are there any context factors that they have identified that they would need to address in a future feasibility study? Although their intervention did not adopt a mindfulness-based approach, are there lessons from other types of bodyfulness/mindfulness-based interventions applied in higher education that are also relevant to the implementation and evaluation of the type of intervention that the authors describe? Do they differ to what we know about other interventions aiming to improve wellbeing and reduce stress? [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: 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 #2: Yes ****** 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: 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 #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: The authors have addressed all the comments and modified the manuscript. The revised manuscript has better quality and clarity. ****** 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: Yes: Allen Joshua George ******** [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.0278372.r003
Revision 2
20 Oct 2022 Author Response Additional Editor Comments: Thank you for submitting a revision of your manuscript. I am the designated Guest Editor to handle this document and I was also part of the first round of the review process. It is clear that the quality of the manuscript has substantially improved and the authors have done a great work addressing the comments raised in the review process. I am satisfied with the authors’ response and revisions to my comments and especially regarding the material that needed to be presented in different sections which allowed a better evaluation of the manuscript. However, there are still some remaining issues which I believe can be easily amended Response: Thank you very much for your comments. We have tried to follow all your indications. -Currently, the authors do not clearly signpost their outcome measures. Just as the authors explain in their response they used a set of questionnaires to measure specific psychological variables. My recommendation is to rename the title “Measures” (if possible) to “Outcome measures” and the processed to title the scales used as “Quantitative Measures” Response: Following the editor’s indications, we have renamed the title “Measures” to “Outcome Measures”. We have left the other titles for the quantitative and qualitative measures as they were in order to respect the limitations of the journal’s guidelines to three heading levels. Anyway, we have introduced additional comments in lines 249 and 256 to clarify the type of measures used. - Is it possible to break-down the study objectives? Currently in line 155 only the aim of the pilot study is provided along with a reference in lines 159-162 to the differences between the two approaches. Response: Following the editor’s suggestions, we have broken-down the general objectives in two specific objectives (see lines 157-161). -The main remaining weakness of the paper is that it offers little insight on the necessity of the qualitative data. Were those data meant to address a specific separate research question? If yes, it would be useful to add it at the end of the introduction section. If, though, they are complementary then the authors would need to elaborate a bit on how they are combined. Response: We have tried to better justify the importance of introducing qualitative data at the end of the introduction. In our view, mixed approaches, combining quantitative and qualitative data, enrich and complement the information gathered by shedding more light on processes, and are essential in areas such as the one we are dealing with. Some references have been added to remark this consideration (see lines 162-169). -I found very helpful the authors’ link to another piece of their work, within which they mention that they conducted “An experimental pre-post design with a control group was combined with an exploratory qualitative approach”. Does that description also apply to the current study? If yes then I would recommend to rephrase it slightly and use that to describe the current study. Similarly, it would help to separate between “Quantitative measures” and “Qualitative Exploration”. Response: Yes, that description also apply to this study. We think that we have clarified better the design with the additional information added throughout the new version of the paper. -In their previous paper that the authors cite in their response to reviewers they mention that “a structured warm up was designed following the characteristics Hatha Yoga Is that an example of combining the two approaches? Response: Yes, in the paper cited, some elements from the two approaches were combined. In fact, one was the structured Hatha Yoga warm-up. In the present paper, the two warm-ups were different, each one of them following their own criteria adapted to the respective programs. If yes, then I would recommend adding that argument and possibly pick up on findings from their current study (one example would be enough) on how one could go to combine other elements of those two approaches. Response: We have tried to include one specific example in the discussion (see lines 880-886). -The authors report that there were some differences in the effects of the two approaches, which was also evident in their qualitative analysis. It would be useful to read what this could possibly mean for the content of future interventions and their targeted outcomes. I believe that they have pointed towards that that in lines 1041-1044: “Furthermore, the choice of assessment instruments seems to be more appropriate for the HY approach. In future work, it would be interesting to incorporate instruments that capture relational aspects as they are essential in the state of life satisfaction, well-being and self-knowledge of the individual”. For this reason, it would be useful to add a sentence in the discussion commenting on the nature of the instruments they used in this study and possibly highlight that the qualitative exploration signals possibly the need to use in future feasibility study other types of outcome measures. Response: We have added the idea suggested (see lines 923-927) and rename the heading “limitations” to “limitations and future directions” to be coherent with the content. -Finally, I would like to pick up on the authors’ response that “The novelty of this paper lies in its introduction in higher education that until now is scarce. The relational component, not included in others approaches, justify the introduction of this approach in education.” I believe that this is an important statement that should be added at the end of the introduction. Response: Following the editor’s recommendation, we have included this statement at the end of the introduction (lines 167-169). Furthermore, I think it would be greatly beneficial if the authors reflect on other factors that may influence or impact on intervention implementation or effectiveness within higher education. Are there any context factors that they have identified that they would need to address in a future feasibility study? Response: You are right. In fact, contextual factors are really important. We have included this consideration in the discussion, lines 910-921. Although their intervention did not adopt a mindfulness-based approach, are there lessons from other types of bodyfulness/mindfulness-based interventions applied in higher education that are also relevant to the implementation and evaluation of the type of intervention that the authors describe? Do they differ to what we know about other interventions aiming to improve wellbeing and reduce stress? Response: We have reinforced the importance of relational component to improve wellbeing and reducing stress. We have also underlined the importance of a structured frame (as mindfulness-based interventions offer) that help participants to increase body awareness, body knowledge and self-confidence regarding the own body (see lines 825-827]. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Respond to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278372.r004
16 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - Maria Armaou, Editor Dear Dr.Rodríguez-Jiménez, Thank you for the submission of your revised manuscript "Stress, subjective wellbeing and self-knowledge in higher education teachers: a pilot study through bodyfulness approaches". After careful review both reviewers agree that the revised manuscript successfully addresses all the comments earlier raised in the review process and they recommend the manuscript to be accepted for publication. Kind regards, Maria Armaou, PhD Guest Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript. I can confirm that the manuscript fully addresses all the issues raised through the review process and is currently fit for publication. 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 ******** 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 ****** 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: 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 #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: Since the authors have addressed all the comments from the reviewers during two revisions, which has improved the quality of the manuscript, I suggest acceptance of the manuscript for publication. ****** 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: Yes: Allen Joshua George ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278372.r005
Formally Accepted
21 Nov 2022 Acceptance Letter - Maria Armaou, Editor PONE-D-21-31772R2 Stress, subjective wellbeing and self-knowledge in higher education teachers: a pilot study through bodyfulness approaches Dear Dr. Rodríguez-Jiménez: 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. Maria Armaou Guest Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278372.r006

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 .