PONE-D-22-32331Factors associated with nurses’ attitudes towards their role in dental care.PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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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

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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: No

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: The topic is interesting and probably will show good findings if it was designed with an adequate method. The following comments are reported in the review of this article.

Page 3, background, first paragraph: I expect to find some text discussing the objective of the study which is the attitude of the nurses BUT not related to dental caries.

This should be totally changed to cope with the aim of the study rather than the nature of dental caries.

Page 4, Background, line 90: This sentence is not of clear expression.

Page 4, Background lines 91-92: these sentences did not show any correlation with the previous text.

Page 4, Background line 106: The aim of the study was different from what was stated in the abstract, therefore, should be corrected and unified. The one in the abstract probably sounds better.

Generally saying: the introduction was not properly written and shows incoherence between sentences and ideas.

Page 5, Method, sample size calculation, line 127: if the Sample size was calculated to be 377 nurses, based on an assumption of 50 percent of nurses, So what methods were used to inflate the sample to 525 as mentioned in the abstract?

This should be clearly described.

Page 5, Methods, data collection tool, line 135:

How the investigators assured that the respondents were nurses? and how was the process conducted to reach a nurse and not another person?

Page 5, methods, line 138: “while the study’s outcome was based on their attitudes.”

this outcome is vague. When do we say attitude what? should be rephrased clearly.

Page 6, Methods, Assessment of attitude, line 157: The calculation was incorrect based on what was stated in the description. If using 5 scales Likert score for 14 questions with a 0 score for strongly disagree, the numbers will be 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, and no number 5. So, the total score will be 56 and not 70 as mentioned in their description. This will totally change the calculation of the attitude level and basically will move all the results that need to be re-calculated in the study.

Page 7, Results, table 1: How the investigator approached those non-Saudi nurses, as they used the same version of the questionnaire or a different language?

Page 8, line 181:

Results, Figure 1 is demonstrating the source of oral health information which was not mentioned in the methods. and figure 2, the data was not clear.

Page 9, results, line 202: The total inserted in table 3 is the repetition of the same result in table 1. Therefore, it is better to stick to one of the findings and omit the other.

Page 10, Results, line 221: based on the wrong calculation of the total score and the categorical score of the attitude, the rest of the findings will be inadequate. Therefore, it needs to repeat the cut-off of goodness for the attitude and then again make your analysis on the attitude towards oral health section.

Discussion, page 13, line 241: "Saudi nurses showed overall positive attitudes towards their role in dental care, and the majority were willing to provide oral health education"

This fact should be revised after the correction of the calculation of the cut-off point and the scores used in this part.

Discussion, page 13, line 255: as the author stated that the positive role of the nurses is comparable with other studies is good but also needs to show the consistency or differences with other studies by percentage at least for each study.

Limitation, page 16: among the limitations that were found in the study is the use of online distribution of the questionnaire for a specific profession without control whether they are students in the dental college or other general population or even from outside the country. This part showed an inflated sample size without any clarification of the reason except it is a snowball method.

References, 9, and 10 no page numbers while reference #24 need revision for the year.

Reviewer #2: Relevant and interesting option to improve the oral health of community. There are few suggestions and 1 necessary change.

1. The introduction of the abstract require some connection between 1st and 2 nd sentence. Both sentences are misfit when read in continuity.

2. Is the questionnaire self designed? if yes then did the authors conduct pilot study to validate it?

3. Title also requires change.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Amen A Bawazir

Reviewer #2: No

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Exploring factors influencing nurses’ attitudes towards their role in dental care

PONE-D-22-32331R1

Dear Dr. Gaffar ,

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,

Samira Adnan

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

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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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

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. 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: The correction and changes made was adequate and going with the raised comments.

In addition, it was made according to the standard of the Journal

Reviewer #2: Thank you so much for incoporating the suggestions.The overall quality of the manuscript has improved.

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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: Amen A. Bawazir

Reviewer #2: No

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