PONE-D-22-34347Development and validation of a depression risk prediction nomogram for US Adults with hypertension, based on NHANES 2007-2018PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Zhang,

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Gregor Stiglic, Ph.D.

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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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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 of reviewing this paper. It pertains to an important area, but I think needs some more work before it is ready for publication.

In the methods section there are listed all the patients that have been excluded form study population.

In my opinion it is a simple list and it is not clear on which criteria some patients has been excluded. If some literature references are available, please cite them in the text.

In the discussion section it is explained how the nomogram could be used to obtain the probability of risk of developing depression in patients with hypertension.

However, depression is a multifactorial disease. While nomogram could give a probability risk of developing depression, it could be interesting to briefly explore (maybe revising literature) how it could be implemented in the everyday clinical practice.

Finally, at the end of the discussion section it is mentioned how the study could be affected by a selection bias regarding the study population, please better specify what the authors mean.

I would suggest a reworking of the discussion sections of this paper & then re-submit.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript is well written. However, I have few concerns - (1) Why females are more depressed than males? This need to be discussed in the manuscript. The mean age of subjects is 54.06 years. Therefore, is it associated with menopause? (2) The mean weekly sleep is 7.11 hrs for depressed individuals. If this number is correct, are they also associated with some other sleep related disorder? (3) Discussion part is not very well written. It has to be elaborated and discuss every finding made by the authors.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Development and validation of a depression risk prediction nomogram for US Adults with hypertension, based on NHANES 2007-2018

PONE-D-22-34347R1

Dear Dr. Zhang,

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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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,

Gregor Stiglic, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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

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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

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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: Dear Editor,

I have had the opportunity to review the revised manuscript and I am pleased to see that the authors have taken my feedback into account and have made the necessary changes to address the mistakes in the previous version. Overall, I now find their work to be well-written, well-structured, and to present novel and interesting findings that contribute significantly to the field.

The flowchart that has been added to the manuscript clearly explains the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study population and it results clear and immediate to be understood by readers.

Moreover, the explanation on how the nomogram can be used in clinical practice with its specific literature references add an important scientific value to the text.

The authors have made significant improvements to the methods and discussion sections which were a major concern in my previous review. Specifically, they have provided a detailed explanation of the methods used, which is clear and well-written. The results are now more accurately reported, and the conclusions drawn from them are more robust.

I also appreciate the authors' efforts to address other minor issues that were identified in the previous review.

Overall, I believe that the revised manuscript is a much stronger and sounder piece of research. The authors have addressed as much as possible (especially regarding the selection bias mentioned in the previous review) the statistical mistakes and have made other improvements that have strengthened the manuscript.

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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: No

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