PONE-D-22-25388Effect of acupuncture on patients with major psychiatric disorder and related symptoms caused by earthquake: Protocol for a scoping review of clinical studiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr Sang-Ho Kim,

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

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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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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

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Recommendations for authors:

In the Title.

It is suggested to specify that the cause of the disorders is caused by "exposure" to an earthquake.

In the abstract:

It is suggested to moderate the phrase "earthquakes have the greatest destructive effect on natural catastrophes". Perhaps the authors could point out that earthquakes are one of the natural catastrophes with the greatest destructive effect.

Another aspect of wording to improve in the abstract is similar to the problem with the title. The sentence that reads: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and anxiety disorder (AD) are major psychiatric disorder (MPD) that can be triggered by earthquakes. … This sentence could be modified to read: "that can be triggered in people by exposure to an earthquake...".

In the results and conclusions, although these sections are projection sections, they are very generic, and applicable to any study. They are almost like model sentences. Authors are required to write projection results and projection conclusions specific to the topic of interest and the target audience. These should generate an impact on the reader regarding what is expected to be found and the usefulness of these findings.

In the introduction.

On line 108, the authors state: “…Psychological treatments include eye movement desensitization therapy, prolonged exposure, ognitive processing therapy, and cognitive behavior therapy…”. The authors could include a table with the types of existing therapies and include their central characteristics, for example: authors, what they consist of, history of effectiveness, benefits, limitations. This would allow the reader to easily observe and compare the types of therapy.

It would be important for the authors to check if there are previous systematic reviews or scoping reviews. It is important to know whether or not there is a systematic review or scoping review on the topic of study. Perhaps there are similar reviews, in this sense it is relevant to know the differences and contribution of the new proposed review in relation to the existing ones on the same or similar research topic. For example, analyze the proposed objectives, databases consulted, limitations of existing reviews, etc..

For example, a quick exploration in Google scholar shows the following related systematic reviews.

• Kwon, C. Y., Lee, B., & Kim, S. H. (2020). Effectiveness and safety of ear acupuncture for trauma-related mental disorders after large-scale disasters: A PRISMA-compliant systematic review. Medicine, 99(8).

• Moiraghi, C., Poli, P., & Piscitelli, A. (2019). An observational study on acupuncture for earthquake-related post-traumatic stress disorder: the experience of the lombard association of medical acupuncturists/acupuncture in the world, in Amatrice, Central Italy. Medical acupuncture, 31(2), 116-122.

• Hong, C., & Efferth, T. (2016). Systematic review on post-traumatic stress disorder among survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 17(5), 542-561.

• Ding, N., Li, L., Song, K., Huang, A., & Zhang, H. (2020). Efficacy and safety of acupuncture in treating post-traumatic stress disorder: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis. Medicine, 99(26).

It is also possible to identify scoping reviews on the topic, as the authors point out that this type of review is more relevant in coherence with the proposed research questions (line 137 to 140.): “Scoping review is more appropriate than a systematic review.(46) Our research team was determined to carry out a scoping review which has a wider view of the relevant field than a systematic review of randomized controlled studies since acupuncture research on PTSD of earthquake survivors has not yet been actively conducted”.

• Zahos, H., Crilly, J., & Ranse, J. (2022). Psychosocial problems and support for disaster medical assistance team members in the preparedness, response and recovery phases of natural hazards resulting in disasters: A scoping review. Australasian emergency care.

• Nascimento, J., Santos, K., Dantas, J., Dantas, D., & Dantas, R. (2021). Non-pharmacological therapies for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder among emergency responders: a scoping review. Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da USP, 55.

• Kim, J., Chesworth, B., Franchino-Olsen, H., & Macy, R. (2021). A scoping review of vicarious trauma interventions for service providers working with people who have experienced traumatic events. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 1524838021991310.

In addition, it is considered essential to review previous studies that have used both review approaches (scoping reviews and systematic reviews) since the authors state in the protocol method that they will use PRISMA: línea 155 y 156 “ Additionally, it was aligned with PRISMA and its Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-Scr)”.

Method

In line 178 the authors point out that: “.. A literature search will be conducted from inception to June 2022…”. However, we are already in October 2022. It would be important to specify that the search will be updated.

In the search strategy it is important to mention the validation procedure of the search algorithm. It would also be important to consider previous systematic reviews on the subject and to give an account of their search algorithms. This is a procedure that allows the authors to support the selected keywords to build their own search algorithm which is also required to be validated by experts in the field.

Considering that the authors point out within their objectives methodological aspects of the research, as well as the results of cynical studies that have implemented acupuncture (L 140 to L 145), it would be interesting for them to consider the incorporation of the measurement methods used in the studies.

Reviewer #2: The justification for the study is adequately presented and the methodology is clear. However, the following issues must be resolved for the article to be eligible for publication:

Lines 74-102: The information presented is valuable, but should be better organized.

Lines 103-116: Several psychological and pharmacological treatments are presented without specific indication for certain disorders for each one. In addition, only their secondary negative effects are described without describing their primary effect, the therapeutic benefit. Please, provide effect sizes for therapeutic effects of each treatment.

“Acupuncture was an immediate medical tool in the meantime and was effective for not only physical but also psychological symptoms, but has scarce medical resources”. Check redaction

“CBT also stimulates traumatic recalls.” This should be included on previous paragraph.

Line 136: The interrogation sign was a typo? Check

Line 177: Web of Science and Scopus are databases used in many reviews. Please, include them or provide rationality for not include them.

Line 178 – vs 189: “Out of many MPDs, this review will focus on PTSD” vs “The kind of MPD will not be restricted”. This is contradictory. Please, resolve.

Line 195-199: “The acceptable study designs will be reviews” vs “On the other hand, […] literature reviews […] will be excluded”. This is contradictory. Please, resolve.

“On the other hand, acupressure therapy will not be included”. Justify this decision.

“Except for East Asian traditional medicine interventions, such as herbal medicine, moxibustion, cupping, and tui-na, any type of control group intervention will be included”. Please, justify this decision.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Fabiola Sáez-Delgado

Reviewer #2: Yes: Claudio Bustos Navarrete

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Effect of acupuncture on patients with major psychiatric disorder and related symptoms caused by earthquake exposure: Protocol for a scoping review of clinical studies

PONE-D-22-25388R1

Dear Dr. Sang-Ho Kim,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Juan-Luis Castillo-Navarrete, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

**********

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

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors responded satisfactorily to the suggestions made. The improved version of the manuscript reflects the improvements incorporated.

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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: Fabiola Sáez-Delgado

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