PONE-D-23-23584Text2whaiora after a suicide attempt: text message design alongside people with lived experiencePLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ng,

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 Apr 18 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,

Karen M Davison, PhD

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. Note from Emily Chenette, Editor in Chief of PLOS ONE, and Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Director of Open Research Solutions at PLOS: 

Did you know that depositing data in a repository is associated with up to a 25% citation advantage (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416)? If you’ve not already done so, consider depositing your raw data in a repository to ensure your work is read, appreciated and cited by the largest possible audience. You’ll also earn an Accessible Data icon on your published paper if you deposit your data in any participating repository (https://plos.org/open-science/open-data/#accessible-data).

3. Please include a complete copy of PLOS’ questionnaire on inclusivity in global research in your revised manuscript. Our policy for research in this area aims to improve transparency in the reporting of research performed outside of researchers’ own country or community. The policy applies to researchers who have travelled to a different country to conduct research, research with Indigenous populations or their lands, and research on cultural artefacts. The questionnaire can also be requested at the journal’s discretion for any other submissions, even if these conditions are not met. 

Please find more information on the policy and a link to download a blank copy of the questionnaire here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/best-practices-in-research-reporting. 

Please upload a completed version of your questionnaire as Supporting Information when you resubmit your manuscript.

4. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

5. Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript. 

6. We note that you have indicated that there are restrictions to data sharing for this study. For studies involving human research participant data or other sensitive data, we encourage authors to share de-identified or anonymized data. However, when data cannot be publicly shared for ethical reasons, we allow authors to make their data sets available upon request. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. 

Before we proceed with your manuscript, please address the following prompts:

a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., a Research Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board, etc.). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent.

b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. You also have the option of uploading the data as Supporting Information files, but we would recommend depositing data directly to a data repository if possible.

Please update your Data Availability statement in the submission form accordingly.

7. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. 

8. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. 

Additional Editor Comments:

Thank you for your submissions and two reviews have been completed. I am hoping you can address their comments and resubmit your manuscript.

Kind Regards,

Karen Davison

[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: 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: Yes

**********

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: Overall this study is very important as a "method" SMS text messaging for structurally vulnerable people who experience mental health challenges and or mental illness. The value added of this qualitative study is in the inclusion of peers as evaluators for text messages.

1.The background shows a good understanding of the literature and need for the study. However, it would be good to situate the study within a global context. For example, the human rights of Indigenous people globally and the global movement toward "Patient Oriented Research" or the inclusion of patient involvement in research extends to public involvement, which means that research is carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them. There is another important concept of "peer" and this has not been defined interms of where this concept came from? this again might help contextualize the paper and its findings within a broader audience.

2. On Page p.4 can you clarify which sentence is requiring a page number reference? see: p2.” Meta-analytic studies show caring contacts reduce some suicidal behaviours and there is limited evidence in reducing suicide mortality, hospitalisation or presentations to the emergency department (Skopp et al., 2023).

3.On page p. 5 please elaborate on how this affected access and support see "…For example, a New Zealand qualitative study asked people with suicidal ideation or suicidal behaviour about their emotional responses to caring contacts and accessing supports (High, 2022). SMS text messages were preferred, compared with other forms of follow up".

4.Methods: If you are using reflexivity as a method of analysis vs a “ method” please elaborate. You could describe this method as a qualitative method incorporating critical reflexivity?- semi structured interviews peer involved research..is not as clear. You note that you adapt from Braun and Clarke to use thematic reflexive analysis, how critical is it that your peers had lived experience, when some research participants did not have lived experience of suicide? this leads to the rich texts and quotes which came from your participants, and it is difficult to see who said what.

The authors mention on p.7 "The analytic narrative of the research was influenced by the intersections of our disciplinary origins and collective interpretations". However as a reader it is hard to see the variation of your participant responses in relation to the themes. The collective meaning that was derived makes sense but we don't get a clear sense of who said what and why.

5. The recommendation under number 4 is to provide some distinctions amongst the data participants as later the authors go on to state on p. 17 " Culturally nuanced findings may be transferable internationally, where there are indigenous or first nations peoples who are familiar with the Turamarama declaration, which affirms the agency and rights of these communities to find their own solutions for health, including suicide prevention". It is recommended that these kinds of human rights and Indigenous rights policies be addressed in the backround section as well as this should not be written as a limitation- given you adopt Braun and Clarke's thematic and reflexive analysis which foreground the active role of the researcher in developing and reflecting on the findings. This idea might also be strengthened if the authors clarify the role of psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. If embedded in a culturally safe framework what is the role of these professionals?

6. More analysis could be provided related to frequency of text schedules as most participants noted that they would prefer to have messages stopped after 3 months, but connect and support should last longer? so there maybe a need to explain what this means in relation to acute mental health crisis and need for follow up support.

7. Not clear how NVivo data analysis software program was used in the analysis or storing the data, please use standard spelling. Limitations could include a mention of other methods that could be used in future to strengthen "peers" voices.

8. The discussion and conclusion provide good implications for policy recommendations. This section could be strengthened by highlighting key policy and practice recommendations for institutional settings, i.e. main stream or Maori mental health settings where mental health supports are provided for patients and families that have experienced a suicide attempt and/or lived experience of someone they know. Is there also a need to adopt an intersectional analysis for diversity of needs that attend to having hand held "devices" where affordibility might be an issue. This section could be strengthened with a discussion related to policy and practice recommendations keeping in mind the peer recommendations.

9. Finally, there is good attention to power but less attention to individual agency and the factors that promote agency. The authors might consider this to add to the nuanced discussion on power. Further, what do the findings mean globally related to issues about equity and virtual care technologies, again this could also be added in the background sections.

The paper could be strengthened with attention to these details.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting and important study. It is well written and clearly presented.

At the same time, the manuscript can be enhanced through attention to the following:

1. How is 'lived experience' being conceptualized in this study?It would be good for the authors to elaborate on this and cite the literature that acknowledges the limitations of singular and static categorical identities, which do not fully recognize that people often occupy multiple identity categories, including clinician/service user/person with lived experience/suicide survivor/professional, etc. See for example J. Voronka's work on the politics of people with lived experience

2. It would be illuminating to see the original text messages prepared by the psychiatrist/psychologist, which were provided to the focus group for evaluation. Note that this relegates the persons with lived experience to the role of 'editors' more than co-designers of the text messages. I wonder if this might be considered as a potential limitation.

3. In the description of the analysis, the authors note that they were influenced by their 'disciplinary origins' but this is not made explicit. What is the theoretical orientation that is being brought to bear on these data?

4. How is the experiential knowledge of those with lived experience being elevated/mobilized to add value to what is already known about the content/form of caring contacts?

5. The qualitative data provided in support of the claims is often rather sparse and the analysis would be strengthened if there were more in-depth quotations provided across the participants

6. What was the length of time provided for the focus group? For 17 people to be able to share their views, there would need to be ample time given to listening to the diverse range of perspectives.

**********

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.

Text2whaiora after a suicide attempt: text message design alongside people with lived experience

PONE-D-23-23584R1

Dear Dr. Ng,

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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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,

Karen M Davison, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Based on review of your responses to the reviewers and the revised manuscript I recommend acceptance. My only suggestion is to add to the quotations some reference to the participant to show if there was a diversity of quotes e.g., participant #1, participant #2.

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: All comments have been addressed

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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: (No Response)

**********

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: No

**********