Factors influencing the acceptability of alcohol drinking for a patient with colorectal cancer

Camille Auriol; Nicole Cantisano; Patrick Raynal

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0296409

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 11, 2023
20 Nov 2023 Decision Letter - Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando, Editor PONE-D-23-13716Factors influencing the acceptability of drinking for a patient with colorectal cancerPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Auriol, 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 Jan 04 2024 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: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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, Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando, MBBS PgD-FM DipPallMed MCGP MRCGP 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "CA was supported by a fellowship program from Institut National du Cancer (INCa_15747 SPADOC20-02). https://www.e-cancer.fr/" Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Additional Editor Comments: Dear Camille Auriol, Thank you for submitting the manuscript for the PLOS One journal's consideration. While the area researched is extremely important, I wish to inform you that the two independent reviewers have had starkly contrasting views regarding your submission, with one reviewer rejecting the manuscript. However, I have curated and modified their comments and am listing them below. Please make necessary amendments in the manuscript with track changes and signpost to these changes in a table of rectifications in a separate document. Where changes cannot be made, I request you make ample justifications for not doing so. In addition, you are expected to submit a clean version of the manuscript. Reviewer 1 1. When presenting the rationale of the study the authors describe possible consequences of stigma on persons living with colorectal cancer. However, as a reader, I would also like to know the beliefs and thoughts underlying stigma attitudes towards those patients and how is this stigma expressed. 2. The way the authors presented the theoretical framework is misleading: Functional Theory of Cognition is not a “method enabling to identify variables involved in one’s judgment”, but rather a theory of how individuals process information to form judgments. Reference : Anderson NH. A functional theory of cognition. Psychology Press; 2014. 3. Page 4 Line 100-102 : “The scenarios were based on four "within subject factors" supposed to have an impact on the perception of a person who drinks alcoholic beverages and who is diagnosed with colorectal cancer”. Vignette-based methods require that factor selection for the scenarios should be based on evidence, not supposition. No previous research suggested that factors selected by the authors--“Drinking habits”, “Drinking behavior”, “Type of cancer diagnosis and prognosis” and level of “Physical activity” -- influence attitudes towards cancer patients with alcohol consumption habits. 4. The authors should provide information regarding recruitment of the participants: Where was the sample of health professionals recruited? Where was the sample of lay people recruited? Where were the participants approached? What was the recruitment procedure for each sample? 5. The research material is unclear. For instance, the understanding of the expression “drinks of alcohol beverages” in the vignette is confusing. Assessment of alcohol consumption cannot be based on the number of drinks solely. One important factor is the alcohol level in the beverage. 3 glasses of beer do not equal 3 glasses of whisky when assessing alcohol consumption. 6. The authors developed the rationale of their study and the discussion of their findings around stigma. However, their research did not investigate the issue of stigma. Their research question has focused on acceptability. Stigma and acceptability are two very different concepts. Reviewer 2 Please find the comments below: 1. I would highly recommend the authors to include 'alcohol drinking' instead of 'drinking' in the title to increase the visibility. 2. The authors have taken two type population - community persons and health professionals. I am very interested to know if there is any difference in the acceptability judgment between highly educated and low/no educated person among these population. (Editor: please clarify or add to the present paper) 3. Did the authors find any difference in the acceptability judgment between male and female study participants? (Editor: please clarify or add to the present paper) [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: No ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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 ****** 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 ******** [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296409.r001
Revision 1
8 Dec 2023 Author Response Response to Reviewers We thank very much the Academic Editor and the Reviewers for their relevant and helpful comments, which we believe have improved our manuscript’s quality. Please find below a document that responds to each point raised by the Academic Editor and Reviewers. Reviewer 1 1. When presenting the rationale of the study the authors describe possible consequences of stigma on persons living with colorectal cancer. However, as a reader, I would also like to know the beliefs and thoughts underlying stigma attitudes towards those patients and how is this stigma expressed. Response: We thank Reviewer 1 for this relevant comment that helped us improving the manuscript. We thus have added three sentences and references on beliefs and thoughts that underlie stigmatizing attitudes towards patients with colorectal cancer (lines 74 to 79). 2. The way the authors presented the theoretical framework is misleading: Functional Theory of Cognition is not a “method enabling to identify variables involved in one’s judgment”, but rather a theory of how individuals process information to form judgments. Reference : Anderson NH. A functional theory of cognition. Psychology Press; 2014. Response: We thank Reviewer 1 for this clarification on the Functional Theory of Cognition. This part was modified accordingly (lines 106 to 108). 3. Page 4 Line 100-102 : “The scenarios were based on four "within subject factors" supposed to have an impact on the perception of a person who drinks alcoholic beverages and who is diagnosed with colorectal cancer”. Vignette-based methods require that factor selection for the scenarios should be based on evidence, not supposition. No previous research suggested that factors selected by the authors--“Drinking habits”, “Drinking behavior”, “Type of cancer diagnosis and prognosis” and level of “Physical activity” -- influence attitudes towards cancer patients with alcohol consumption habits. Response: We are grateful to Reviewer 1 for this valuable comment. In this manuscript’s new version, we have developed the rationale regarding the choice of factors for the construction of the scenarios (lines 119 to 122 and 126 to 135). 4. The authors should provide information regarding recruitment of the participants: Where was the sample of health professionals recruited? Where was the sample of lay people recruited? Where were the participants approached? What was the recruitment procedure for each sample? Response: We have added information regarding the recruitment of participants, in the Participants section (lines 146 to 149). 5. The research material is unclear. For instance, the understanding of the expression “drinks of alcohol beverages” in the vignette is confusing. Assessment of alcohol consumption cannot be based on the number of drinks solely. One important factor is the alcohol level in the beverage. 3 glasses of beer do not equal 3 glasses of whisky when assessing alcohol consumption. Response: We agree with this comment, even though it would have been difficult to take into account the type of alcoholic beverage, the volume taken and the percentage of alcohol in the drink. We now mention this aspect as a limitation (lines 376 to 378). 6. The authors developed the rationale of their study and the discussion of their findings around stigma. However, their research did not investigate the issue of stigma. Their research question has focused on acceptability. Stigma and acceptability are two very different concepts. Response : We are grateful to Reviewer 1 for this comment. Indeed, stigma and acceptability are different concepts. To clarify this, we have further developed the definition of stigma in the Introduction section and clarified the relationship between stigma and acceptability (line 68 to 72). In addition, for improved accuracy of the text, the term “stigmatization” was changed to “acceptability judgments” in the results section. Reviewer 2 Please find the comments below: 1. I would highly recommend the authors to include 'alcohol drinking' instead of 'drinking' in the title to increase the visibility. Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this valuable suggestion. The title and short title were modified accordingly. 2. The authors have taken two type population - community persons and health professionals. I am very interested to know if there is any difference in the acceptability judgment between highly educated and low/no educated person among these population. (Editor: please clarify or add to the present paper) Response: We thank Reviewer 2 for this suggestion. We have now included the results regarding the influence of education level on acceptability judgments in each sample. These results are presented within the last paragraph of the sub-section entitled "Participants’ characteristics and descriptive statistics" in the Results section (lines 232 to 241). 3. Did the authors find any difference in the acceptability judgment between male and female study participants? (Editor: please clarify or add to the present paper) Response: We apologize for this oversight. We now include t-test results regarding the lack of statistical significance of differences of acceptability judgements between male and female (lines 228 and 231). Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296409.r002
13 Dec 2023 Decision Letter - Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando, Editor Factors influencing the acceptability of alcohol drinking for a patient with colorectal cancer PONE-D-23-13716R1 Dear Dr. Auriol, 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, Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando, MBBS PgD-FM DipPallMed MCGP MRCGP Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): The first reviewer's fifth comment remains an unmodifiable factor favouring rejection as proposed. However, considering that the participants' subjective perception about the level of alcohol consumption is still a valid measurement, I believe this paper deserves publication. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296409.r003
Formally Accepted
18 Dec 2023 Acceptance Letter - Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando, Editor PONE-D-23-13716R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Auriol, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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 Gunasekara Vidana Mestrige Chamath Fernando Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296409.r004

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 .