PONE-D-24-07175Impact of mindfulness on football coaches: a mixed designPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gibert,

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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

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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

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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 manuscript (MS) is generally well-written, and appropriate methods have been implemented in the design, ethics, intervention, and analyses.

I would like the authors to address:

(1) Why the wait list control group received the program just after the pre- and post- evaluation? This does not allow to observe possible differences in the two follow-ups…

(2) In the whole MS, the authors use the expression “decrease in difficulties in emotion regulation”. This is, in my opinion, counterintuitive and I would generally refer to “improvement in emotion regulation”.

Please, see my specific comments below:

Abstract

- “(MxE)” please specify what MxE is

- “A significant decrease in difficulties in emotion regulation” I would write “significant improvement in emotion regulation”

Introduction (No particular comments)

Method

Why the wait list control group received the program just after the pre- and post- evaluation? This does not allow to observe possible differences in the two follow-ups… Please, provide a reason for this

Lines 109-114, the authors state that 48.3% of participants meditated sometimes; and that the sample consisted of coaches (39.7%), technical directors (12.1%) and coordinator (34.5%). Were these proportions maintained in the experimental and in the control group?

Line 132, at this point I presume MxE stands for Mindfulness for Enhancement? Please, specify at the beginning of the manuscript and in the abstract

Line 147. The table is very well-done and clarifies the whole MxE programme.

Lines 192-193. “translated the questionnaire”? Then the authors can mention the fact that the questionnaire was not previously validated in Spanish language in the Limitation section at Lines 441-447.

Lines 195. “of THE Difficulties IN Emotion Regulation Scale”?

Lines 199-200. Check verb tenses, please.

Lines 201-202. Please, expand this part with the description of the practice-log.

Line 221. Standard Deviation (SD)?

Results:

Line 280. Table 3 should mention somewhere that these data were relating to the sole experimental group.

Lines 345-348. If this theme “was widely highlighted”, the authors could expand a bit more this paragraph.

Discussion:

Lines365-366. I understand that the questionnaire was measuring “difficulties in emotion regulation” and that there was a decrease in these dimensions. However, it seems odd to read “a significant decrease in difficulties in emotional regulation”. I would invite the authors to consider writing “a significant improvement in emotion regulation” here and in the abstract. All fine in all the other parts I have read so far.

Line 376. Again “significant decrease in difficulties in emotional regulation”. Please, consider rewording this sentence.

Lines 383-385: “The transfer of mindfulness …” this sentence is a bit unclear to me, I would reword it as follows: “From the interviews, it also emerged that participants started to transfer what learned in during the mindfulness sessions to daily training, gaining deeper vision on players’ behaviours: “…”

Line 443-444. “A limitation was due to the fact that the scale did not receive previous psychometric validation. However, best practices for questionnaire translations were followed for adapting the scale for use within Spanish speakers.” Or something along these lines. Please, add a reference to support that the adopted procedure was a best practice for questionnaire translations.

Line 464. “on coaches, support staff and technical directors’ mindfulness ability and emotional stability”?.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Impact of mindfulness on football coaches: a mixed design

PONE-D-24-07175R1

Dear Dr. Gibert,

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,

Ender Senel, PhD

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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

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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: Interpersonal repeated twice among the keywords

All my comments have been addressed and the Manuscript is well-written

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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

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