PONE-D-23-09529The Influence of psychological capital on core competency for new nursesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Xia,

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Chunyu Zhang

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

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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

Reviewer #3: 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: I reviewed a piece of work entitled the influence of psychological capital on core competency for new nurses. The competency of new nurses is a fascinating topic to address, but the study needs a solid, fundamental justification. To improve the quality of the manuscript's content overall, a few aspects need to be thoroughly examined.

The manuscript needs to be strictly followed and the instructions returned by the journal.

The abstract's content, particularly the study's aim and background, needs to be reorganized. It is good to combine the two. Please describe the sorts of ANOVA analysis that were employed in the method.

Additional information is needed in the introduction to strengthen the situation for why new nurses should be studied on the relationship between their core competency and psychological capital. Are there any important problems that should be brought up in relation to the competency and psychological capital of new nurses in the local setting?

The methodology requires extra info to make robust. The study was conducted in a single institution which might not reflect the entire target population in China. The selection of the sample applies a convenient sampling method which could further increase the selection bias. No sample size calculation was explained. Both details of the questionnaires are required especially on their originality of the validity and reliability of the tool. The scoring system applied in each of them, and the detail of the domain and items included.

The explanation on the application of the hierarchy multiple regression analysis probably needed. It does not reflect the true picture of analysis if we refer the Table 4.

The results of the study should be self-explanatory. Table 1 – how did you define the “new nurses“ when you include those who already three years in service? Nature of the nurses – how did you define it? What is the difference between contract nurses and staff nurses?

Table 2 – it is good if you include the minimum and maximum value of the score for each item. What is the purposes of including Total score M and Total score SD?

Table 3 – the p value at the bottom of the table refers to which correlation analysis (which pairing)? Are you saying that all pairs are not statistically significant? It does not correspond well with the description.

Table 4 – the hierarchy multiple regression analysis needs to be shown clearly step by step.

The overall discussion probably need to be rewrite following the correction in the method and result section.

Reviewer #2: 1. This paper presents an empirical and rigorous investigation, yielding analysis results of substantial research reference value. However, it is imperative to enhance and refine the motivation for conducting such research. In the "Background" section, the author acknowledges the current lack of clarity regarding the extent to which psychological capital influences the core competence of new nurses. Nonetheless, the final "Discussion" reveals consistency with previous research.

For instance:

1. This result is similar to that for newly graduated nurses in Norway (15) but slightly higher than that of Chinese another study (13).

2. The overall psychological capital of new nurses is at a moderate to the high level, which is consistent with the findings of Jiao Yang et al (16).

In light of these findings, it becomes imperative to underscore the significance and distinctiveness of this paper.

2. In order to enhance the readability of the article for an international journal, it may be beneficial to incorporate additional content. Consider augmenting the existing information or introducing research questions/research hypotheses in the literature section.

3. Furthermore, it is worth considering the inclusion of a research framework within your study. This framework can provide a structured and comprehensive approach to guide the investigation and strengthen the overall research methodology.

Reviewer #3: Dear Author,

Your article is interesting. Naturally, there are parts that can be revised. However, there is an important problem that is not very possible to revise, and that creates the wrong opinion about the selection of new nurses. Below is my assessment of each part of your article.

The title effectively conveys the main topic of the research in a clear and concise manner. The summary is clear, understandable and clear.

The introduction explains core competency and psychological capital for nurses, but does not explain the rationale for researching the effect of psychological capital on core competeny. The results of other studies of new nurses that include variables that may affect core competency should be included and should convince the reader that the effect of psychological capital should be investigated.

In the method, the second criterion specified as the selection criterion of the participants is not clear. It would be appropriate to choose a time limit reported in the literature. The most important element to be defined in this study. In the literature, new nurses are defined as nurses who have joined an organization within the last 30 days. I would like to know the mean and standard deviations of the study times of the participants. It is not clear whether there are nurses who have worked for a few months in the group whose working period is specified as one year, or whether there are nurses who have completed a full year. For the nurse who has worked for two or three years, proof of the "new nurses" designation should have been added. The population and sample size of the study is insufficient. Power analysis is also recommended. It is not clear whether the Cronbach's α values given for the scales used belong to the current study.

Ethics committee approval is indicated, but information on how and how informed consent was obtained should be included.

Hierarchical preference of regression analysis is not appropriate in the analysis of data. While a significant relationship was found between all subscales of psychological capital and core competency, it is not possible to explain the reason for including only self-efficacy in the analysis.

In the discussion section, it is seen that comments and inferences are missing, except for mentioning the similarity with previous studies. In line with the purpose of the study, there is a need to deepen the discussion.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Influence of psychological capital on core competency for new nurses

PONE-D-23-09529R1

Dear Dr. Xia,

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,

Chunyu Zhang

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

**********

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

**********

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: I went over the revised version of the work. I am satisfied with the quantity and quality of adjustment that has been made. The manuscript looks considerably better and the flow of information is much easier to comprehend.

Reviewer #2: The author has made the necessary corrections based on my previous suggestion, and I agree with that. However, I would like to point out that there might have been a misunderstanding regarding my mention of a research framework. A research framework refers to a precise representation of the structure of a research project plan. By utilizing this "structure," one can determine the critical areas of the study. It would be highly beneficial to include a visual representation of the research framework, such as a diagram, in the paper. Doing so would significantly enhance the overall quality of the paper.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

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