https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7861-8597
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionSeptember 5, 2022 |
|---|
|
PONE-D-22-24534If the weight is gone, is the stigma also gone? A qualitative study of the perceptions and experiences of Brazilian older and younger women who underwent bariatric surgeryPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dimitrov Ulian, 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 Feb 11 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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, Carlos Magno Castelo Branco Fortaleza, M.D., Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified whether: 1) whether the ethics committee approved the verbal/oral consent procedure, 2) why written consent could not be obtained, and 3) how verbal/oral consent was recorded. If your study included minors, please state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians in these cases. If the need for consent was waived by the ethics committee, please include this information. Furthermore, please clarify how digital consent was obtained and documented 3. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability. "Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Important: If there are ethical or legal restrictions to sharing your data publicly, please explain these restrictions in detail. Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. Additional Editor Comments: The manuscript focuses on a relevant area for research and their results are relevant. There are, however, some flaws that must be corrected. Special attention must be directed to Reviewer #2 comments on the use of stigmatizing language and the "visual analysis" mentioned in lines #208-2015. Methodology section should be improved, including Reviewer #1 recommendation of better description of the characteristics of healthcare and follow up of study participants.The text also requires extensive rewriting to achieve appropriate standards of readability. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No 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: No ********** 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: Introduction Line 72-72 – “In Brazil, bariatric procedures have been available at no cost to patients since 1999 73 through the Unified Public Health System or the Sistema Único de Saúde [10]” but even so, it is necessary to consider how is the access to this intervention, as the demand for the procedure is certainly very high. Clarify regional differences and the issue of equity. Methods - Research Setting and Study Population The autors inform that patients being followed by the Bariatric Surgery Outpatient Clinics of HCFMUSP. Describe better how women get there, referral criteria and how they are followed up, how often and for how long is the follow-up, before/after surgery, and by which professionals. In the lines 650-651 the autors indicate “Although our participants also had pre-operative support groups, this support may have been insufficient to combat stressful social messaging.” This suggests that there is no further follow-up, but the women were recruited at this service after the surgery. The script used for the interviews was not presented, which guiding questions and the previous experience of the researcher (Author1) was not clarified for carrying out both the interviews and data analysis - this aspect is very relevant for the quality of qualitative research. Results On Table 1, complete your title indicating location/year. And explain how this information on the women's characteristics was obtained, whether directly with the women or clinic provided, from a medical record. Reviewer #2: The links between weight and stigma are a growing research area, and it is encouraging to see more research like this in the Global South specifically. Currently, however, the manuscript requires major revisions to most sections. I’ve provided comments below to try and guide where these revisions would be beneficial. Title The title would stand alone better, be more grammatically correct, and be clearer without the question. For example, as “A qualitative study of Brazilian women’s’ perceptions and experiences of weight stigma after bariatric surgery”. I echo the same point for the short title. Perhaps a reframe to “A qualitative study of stigma after bariatric surgery”. Abstract • Can you please reframe the following into a research aim/objective (rather than a question): “However, how do bariatric patients perceive and internalize this stigma in different life stages? Specifically, is older age a risk factor?”. The current framing is a little too colloquial. • Can you explicitly state the method of data analysis used? E.g., was it thematic analysis or something different? • The abstract is missing a conclusion. Can you please add a sentence concluding your findings, and perhaps suggesting how the findings may be used in the future? You could make your results more concise if you need more word count to allow this. General • Can you explain if and how you included patient and public involvement in this work? For example, what stages were they involved and what activities/input did they have. • Throughout the manuscript, there are quantifying words or sentences for example: ‘For all participants’ or ‘Some of the women’. Please delete the quantifying words. • The manuscript would benefit greatly from a review of the grammar/scientific writing. Introduction • Can the tone of the following sentence be softened: “all of which induce severe weight loss through the surgical reduction of the stomach and/or intestines”. For example, to “all of which aim to induce severe weight loss through the surgical reduction of the stomach and/or intestines” • Please add references to support: “Bariatric patients often present for surgery with a history of complex anxieties and negative social experiences stemming from weight-related stigma.” • The word ‘deviant’ isn’t necessary to the message in the sentence on line 82 in the second paragraph of the introduction – can you please remove. • In the definition of weight stigma by Brewis, stigmatising language itself is used (“being overweight or obese”). Can you please reframe this to move away from this language and use person-first language instead? • In the introduction (and manuscript) you move between using the term weight stigma and weight-related stigma. Can you please amend the manuscript so you use consistent language throughout? • In the introduction, you use the stigmatising language of “fat”. Can you please address this throughout the manuscript to use person-first language? • The introduction is very lengthy and consistently takes multiple paragraphs to make a point that could be made more clearly in one paragraph. Could you please review the introduction to see where content could be made more concise, and therefore clearer for the reader to follow? • Can you soften the tone in the following sentence: “Weight loss induced by surgical intervention is so rapid that it produces a great deal of excess skin and it also begins at the “ends,” i.e., people tend to lose weight in their heads, arms, and legs before they lose it in their torsos”. For example, to: “Weight loss induced by surgical intervention is so rapid that it often produces a great deal of excess skin. Furthermore, people tend to lose weight in their heads, arms, and legs before they lose it in their torsos, influencing their body shape and size”. • Despite the length of the introduction, it does not note the potential implications of addressing the research aim. For example, how will this inform public health? Methods • Can you please move the ethical approval statement to the start of the methods section? • Overall, there is a great lack of detail in the data analysis section. Please review and add more detail here to aid the reader to thoroughly understand what you have done with enough detail for them to replicate the processes. For example: You note participants who fit the ‘proposed profile’ were invited to interview - what is the proposed profile? What sampling method did you use? Did you use purposeful sampling, snowball, opportunist? How were the interviews transcribed? Was this by an external company or by the lead author? • You note in the data collection section that “This two-encounters approach proved to be quite effective in obtaining data and resulted in the chance to complete the interview protocol in a way that was practical and feasible for the participants’ schedules”. I’m unclear how conducting two interviews would be more practical and feasible for someone’s schedule than conducting one interview – can you explain? Also, “proved to be quite effective in obtaining data” is very unclear and non-specific. I’m not sure the value this sentence brings or the message you are trying to communicate. • You state that “Notably, the time gap between the first and second interviews led to increased reflexivity among the participants and the researcher, who reviewed the recording of the first encounter to note gaps that needed to be covered in the second.” Reflexivity is the acknowledgement of your role and influence on the research process, so it does not make sense in this sentence. Perhaps you were meaning data quality? I’d also suggest softening the tone of many of these sentences. You cannot be certain that the time gap you had led to increased (presumably) data quality, but you could say that was the aim/purpose of the time gap. • I strongly oppose to many of the messages from line 208 to 215, and feel the messages themselves exacerbate the stigmatisation of those living with overweight or obesity. If you are analysing participants experiences (e.g., feeling like they had not lost enough weight), then it is not your role and it is inappropriate to say that you must visually assess/observe their bodies to validate this. Furthermore, the notation of having to “rely on her description” is highly problematic. If you are analysing someone’s experiences, then the analysis and resultant publication should be aiming to represent the voices of the participant, not your assessment as to whether these experiences are reliable. Please remove this paragraph. • Lines 227 to 229 are hard to follow – can you please rephrase? • In lines 228-229, you note themes as emerging as significant. These is vast amounts of literature noting themes as “emergent” to be problematic as it suggests that the themes always existed within the data, and voids the influence of our positionality as the researcher on the process. Can you please review this throughout the manuscript to remove this concept? • In lines 231-233, you state that you identified excerpts of interviews relevant to the themes of interest, but you have not explained the process of theme development at this stage. How did you develop the themes of interest? • You have not described how the interview schedule was produced or referenced to a copy of the interview schedule in the supplements. Please add these details. • There lacks a section on the researcher positionality and how they managed the impact of this through reflexivity. Please can the authors address this. Results • In Table 1, please remove the percent and standard deviation. These are not generally used in qualitative studies. • You presented quotations in multiple languages, but have not noted this translation process in the methods section. Please add this information. • Throughout the results section, you state findings in affirmative language – for example, “she asked if this man had…”. A better/more accurate way of describing the findings is to include acknowledgement of the interpretation of their accounts by including prefaces – for example, such as “the participant described/expressed that she asked the man...”. It would strengthen the manuscript to review and revise these areas. • The final lines of the first theme (lines 314 to 317) don’t seem to fit with the narrative of the rest of the theme. Can you please review and either remove or clarify their fit with the narrative? • Line 323 – are these self-appointed by the participant or by their peers? • Between lines 329 to 335, you describe others having concerns over the participants health. Could you please include a supporting quotation here? • On lines 348 to 350, you introduce new literature within the results section. You shouldn’t incorporate other literature in this section so could you remove and rephrase this section. For example, you could simply say “Participants who described experiencing small weight regain after weight loss described being reprimanded by others”. • Line 360 – is “melt off” a quote from a participant or your own writing? If a quote, can quotations marks please be added. If it is your own writing, can it be rephrased to be more in line with the language and writing style of the piece. • Again in lines 366 to 370, you introduce new literature and compare findings to existing evidence. Please remove this from the results. This is repeated in areas throughout the results section – can you please review this throughout. • Lines 391 to 392 begin to discuss the results, rather than present the results. Can you please move this to the discussion or remove? • Line 393 “aggressive” and line 396 “mad”– were these words used by the participants or is this your own language choice? • Line 400 to 401 – did participants say that the advice was not backed up by evidence, or is this your own commentary? If the latter, please move to the discussion or remove. • Line 423 – did the participant describe the foods as “fattening foods” themselves? If so, can you please add quotation marks. If not, can you please remove/reframe this concept. • Lines 444 to 450 do not belong in the results section altogether, and the key points should only remain in the introduction. I recommend to remove altogether and keep the focus to the findings of this particular study. • Lines 470 to 472 – I recommend to rephrase these lines. Currently, this reads as your perception rather than a reflection of participants voices and experiences. • Unit of meaning 4 – this title includes non-person first language. Can this please be amended. • Unit of meaning 4 does not appear to have a well-bounded message or narrative. The points within feel quite distinct from one another at times, and they do not always relate to the overarching title given to the theme. I think this theme needs a reworking entirely to reclarify what the key messages are, and refocused the text to make those clearer. • Overall, the themes are extremely long which makes it difficult at times to follow the key points – they can get lost in the length of text. Can you review the themes and identify where things could be cut down or made more concise? For example, when a message is communicated, you often include many examples and quotations, and this many are not always necessary to support and evidence the message communicated. You could look to cut down these areas. In addition, much of the themes feels like a reproduction of the contributing interviews, rather than a summative/themed narrative cutting across the interviews, thus contributing to the length of the themes and the dilution of the messages within. • A key aim of the paper was to compare the differences in experiences of younger and older women, but from how the results are presented (i.e., experiences of each group intertwined throughout, without much comparative analytical commentary) it is not possible to do this. Have you considered separately the results in each theme by younger and older to make clearer distinctions ofaz these experiences? Discussion • Lines 561-562. In the introduction, the aim is framed to compare younger and older women, rather than to focused explicitly on the experiences of older women as it is framed in this line. Can you please amend this line to be consistent? • Paragraph 2 (lines 576 to 589) mostly represents the findings of the study, and there is limited comparison to other available literature. It is also a little to strong to claim this finding to be ‘novel’ due to perceived strength of messaging, and I recommend softening the tone here. In addition, the end of the paragraph lacks cited literature to support the statements made (i.e., lines 586-589). The language/grammar would benefit from reviewing in this area too. • Consistently throughout the discussion, the paragraphs tend to reproduce the findings of the study, with very limited contextualisation or comparison with the wider literature base. • Lines 620 to 624 – this sentence is extremely long and hard to follow, and it also introduces several new, large points (e.g., Foucault’s notion of biopower). These concepts should be introduced in the introduction if they are to be discussed because, as currently written, this section does not give enough context or background information for the reader to fully conceptualise the messages intended. • Paragraph on lines 620 to 634 does not seem to fit with the narrative of the entire manuscript, and the messages made feel extremely distinct and off-topic. I’m unclear how your findings compare to this and fit within these messages. In addition, in areas, it reads to have been influenced by opinions rather than a balanced discussion of this complex area. For example, the description of weight management to be “punitive” and “authoritarian” and aligned with assumptions that “those with a higher body weight lack knowledge and understanding about health practices, make poor choices, and refuse to take responsibility for their health and well-being”. If this section is to remain, it would require reworking to provide a scientifically critical and balanced discussion from multiple lens. • Line 631 – we do not tend to gender the authors of literature we are citing as we cannot assume one’s gender. Can you please review this throughout the manuscript. • The manuscript lacks a section highlighting the limitations of the study. Please review and add this to the manuscript. This should include (among others) – the impact of researcher positionality and the recall bias due to the long time span between the surgeries of participants. Conclusion • Lines 679-682, and lines 686-687. Insufficient comparison between the groups has been presented through the manuscript as currently written to make a clear conclusion about the differences in experiences. I would recommend reworking the results section to make this potentially possible to conclude, or remove these conclusions. ********** 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: 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. |
| Revision 1 |
|
PONE-D-22-24534R1A qualitative study of Brazilian women’s perceptions and experiences of weight stigma after bariatric surgeryPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dimitrov Ulian, 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 Jun 23 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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, Vidanka Vasilevski Academic 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: The revisions to the study have improved the quality of the paper, however there remain a few minor readibility issues that need to be rectified prior to publication. Some references need to be added/edited in the introduction section. The full paper requires English language editing, engaging an editing service may support this. There are many long and complex sentences that need refining also. In the research setting and study population section, the eligibility criteria includes gendered language (i.e., her). I assume men and women would be eligible for bariatric surgery, therefore referring to 'her' only is not appropriate. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: (No Response) ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: N/A ********** 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: Thank you for your responses to my comments - the article is reading much better. To note - your responses should direct the reviewer to the page and line numbers where the edits in text have been made and, if possible, provide the edited text within your response also. It makes the process of peer review substantially more time consuming and difficult to not be given direction or detail within responses. Original reviewer comment: Can you explain if and how you included patient and public involvement in this work? For example, what stages were they involved and what activities/input did they have. Author response: Participants were patients who underwent bariatric surgery at Hospital das Clínicas of the School of Medicine, University of São Paulo. Their involvement with the research included the individual semi-structured interviews. They were contacted by Author 1 and, if they agreed to participate, the interview was scheduled. These procedures are extensively described in the Methods section. Reviewer response: Patient and public involvement (PPI) is an active partnership between members of the public and researchers, where the public are involved in aspects of the study/research (such as informing the study design, supporting with analysis). The participants of the study do not count as PPI. You can read more about this on: https://www.rds-sc.nihr.ac.uk/ppi-information-resources/ Can you please provide a response given this explanation of PPI. Original reviewer comment: Can you please reframe the following into a research aim/objective (rather than a question): “However, how do bariatric patients perceive and internalize this stigma in different life stages? Specifically, is older age a risk factor?”. The current framing is a little too colloquial. Can you explicitly state the method of data analysis used? E.g., was it thematic analysis or something different? The abstract is missing a conclusion. Can you please add a sentence concluding your findings, and perhaps suggesting how the findings may be used in the future? You could make your results more concise if you need more word count to allow this. Author response: The changes in the Abstract were made accordingly. Reviewer response: You have not added the method of data analysis used to the abstract – please address this. The conclusion added goes beyond what your findings can support, and should be softened in tone to be more appropriate to the levels of findings. Specifically, the findings do not inform a targeted approach, however they might suggest future research should explore whether a targeted approach might be more effective. Original reviewer comment: In the introduction, you use the stigmatising language of “fat”. Can you please address this throughout the manuscript to use person-first language? Author response: The change was made accordingly. We just kept the word “fat throughout the manuscript when it was an emic word or when referring to authors that employed this word. Reviewer response: Can you please edit the text to have quotation marks (or something similar) to make it clear to the reader than the remaining use of the word ‘fat’ is not your words, but quoting participants etc. Original reviewer comment: Line 631 – we do not tend to gender the authors of literature we are citing as we cannot assume one’s gender. Can you please review this throughout the manuscript. Authors response: We believe it is essential to point out that all the authors who sign this article stand out for investigating the different social markers of difference, including gender and sexuality, from an intersectional perspective. In this sense, the assumption of a particular gender is far from our perspective. If we de-gender an author, we would use the pronouns he and him, which are already gendered. Therefore, we decided to continue to refer to the authors as they refer to themselves as a gender through their productions and first names. We believe that de-gendering authors, without their consent, could become a lack of respect for their gender ascriptions. Reviewer response: From viewing the submitted manuscript, I see that this section has now been deleted. Regardless, it is important to clarify this point. Not assuming gender wouldn’t ever result in the automatic use of he/him – if pronouns were ever essential to be used, the pronouns used generally are they/them when not assuming gender. In addition, you cannot be sure of a person’s gender from their first name – this bears no reflection of gender. I’m unsure what the authors mean when they say ‘their productions’. Generally, ‘the authors found’ or ‘the study found’ is used instead of gendered terms – this is the practice you have used elsewhere in this article. ********** 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: Dr Rebecca A Jones ********** [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.
|
| Revision 2 |
|
Weight stigma after bariatric surgery: A qualitative study with Brazilian women. PONE-D-22-24534R2 Dear Dr. Dimitrov Ulian, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Vidanka Vasilevski Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: Rather than returning the paper for minor revision, I decided to accept the paper and ask you to make one minor change once you get to the copy edit stage. The first sentence in the introduction does not make sense: "One of the most effective means currently available to individuals seeking to lose weight deemed medically excessive is bariatric surgery." I believe the term excessive in the above sentence may need to be replaced with necessary? Can you please rectify this when you review the copy edit of your paper prior to submission. |
| Formally Accepted |
|
PONE-D-22-24534R2 Weight stigma after bariatric surgery: A qualitative study with Brazilian women. Dear Dr. Dimitrov Ulian: 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. Vidanka Vasilevski Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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 .