PONE-D-22-30101Impairment-Based Assessments for Patients With Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review of Measurement PropertiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Schurz,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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ACADEMIC EDITOR:Dear Author,There are still some issues that need correction. Please attend to all the reviewers' comments and make the necessary changes.==============================

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review "Impairment-Based Assessments for Patients With Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review of Measurement Properties "

The paper provides a thorough review of the measurement properties of several physical measures and PROMs appropriate for the care of patients with ankle injuries. I have few comments.

Line 102 - should read "data were"

Line 202 - I do not agree with this statement. It seems unclear as to the timing of the assessment of the subjects in this study. Likely that some / most were < 4 wks post injury resulting in swelling given that the sample was drawn from a college campus.

line 248 - is this 53-93% or 5.3 to 93%? if the latter simply state 5-93% for clarity

line 397 - The use of ultrasound is recommended ? please clarify as the sentence does not read well

459 - Perhaps "Due to the inflammatory response, pain and swelling, the test .... " would better convey your intention

Reviewer #2: Review

Many thanks to the authors for having presented a so interesting systematic review about “Impairment-Based Assessments for Patients with Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review of Measurement Properties”.Before resubmitting the revision version of the article, please read the editorial rules carefully, and check other editorial aspects. The language is partially good, but the manuscript needs to be corrected by a person of English mother tongue.

Abstract

The abstract is partially good, please mention the type of the study, research timing and study settings.

This section is partially well structured and contains the main information of the study.

Key words

Please provide them in alphabetic order and add a couple of new key words.

Background

The introduction explains well the scientific premises of the study, and why this topic was chosen. However, it would be necessary to better explain the hypotheses that must be verified or denied by the study.

Please, provide more anatomical deteails of both lateral and medial compartment of the ankle joint, quoting:

• The undefined anatomical variations of the deltoid ligament bundles: A cadaveric study. 10.11138/mltj/2018.8.2.163

Methods

Please add the exact period within which study selection was conducted. Please describe more fully what you have done to avoid or address possible study bias.

Statistical analysis

Please describe the statistical analysis methos in more detail way: who performed the analysis: an independent statistician or the same authors?

Results

The results presented are quite complete, reflecting the MM section.

Please displayed the results in a readable fashion.

Discussion

The length and content of the discussion communicates the main information of the paper. However, the results should be better discussed with those presented in the most recent literature, quoting:

• Is Kinesio Taping Effective for Sport Performance and Ankle Function of Athletes with Chronic Ankle Instability (CAI)? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Medicina (Kaunas). 2022 Apr 29;58(5):620. doi: 10.3390/medicina58050620.

Please, better describe any potential bias and weaknesses of the study.

Conclusion

The conclusions only reflect and refer to the results of the study and it is justified by the results and the methods.

References

The references are not up to date. Hence, delate those before 2010 if not essential, replacing them with newer ones. Please correct the references making them all the same in style according to editorial rules.

Tables and Figures

The number and quality of tables and figures are appropriate to transmit the main information of the paper.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Craig R Denegar

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-22-30101R1Impairment-Based Assessments for Patients With Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review of Measurement PropertiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Schurz,

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 the points that need to be revised as raised by the reviewer/s.The decision of this manuscript is justified based on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not its on novelty or perceived impact.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by 28th February 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

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Please, quote the articles, related with the study topic, as suggested in the previous revision of the original manuscript. Thank you!

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Craig R Denegar

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.

Impairment-Based Assessments for Patients With Lateral Ankle Sprain: A Systematic Review of Measurement Properties

PONE-D-22-30101R2

Dear Dr. Schurz,

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.

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Kind regards,

Zulkarnain Jaafar

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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