PONE-D-24-11234Locating the evidence for children and young people social prescribing: Where to start? A scoping review protocolPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Feather,

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.

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This paper outlines a protocol for a scoping review on social prescribing for mental health conditions among young people. It is well written and provides an important contribution to the literature. There are some methodological details missing from this paper that should be addressed by the authors. There are also grammatical and punctuation errors that require the authors' attention.

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Apurva kumar Pandya, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

This paper outlines a protocol for a scoping review on social prescribing for mental health conditions among young people. It is well written and provides an important contribution to the literature. There are some methodological details missing from this paper which should be addressed by authors. There are also grammatical and punctuation errors that require authors' attention.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

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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 and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Overview: This paper outlines a protocol for a scoping review on social prescribing for mental health conditions among young people. It is well written and provides an important contribution to the literature. There are some methodological details missing from this paper which should be addressed by authors.

Abstract and Introduction:

- Line 25: can remove the (‘) from ‘systems-based approach’

- Line 32: Please include in the abstract the type of review that will be conducted (scoping?)

- Line 39-40: I’m not sure what is meant by ‘data extraction will be carried out by two reviewers to identify the scope and depth of MeSH used in the literature…’; MeSH headings are typically a part of the search strategy and not something you would look to during data extraction so it is unclear what is meant by this sentence. Please clarify.

- Line 42-43: Please include an additional line about data synthesis and risk of bias. How will this step be completed? Will you conduct a risk of bias/quality appraisal assessment?

- The introduction section could be shortened to ensure conciseness; I think the 2nd last paragraph could be removed as it seems a bit repetitive

- Line 72-75: please spell out numbers under 10 (or use % if it’s easier to indicate what is meant)

Methods

- Line 173: could you provide a reference for the 0-25 age range? Other criteria for youth in the literature include 0-18- or 0–19-year-olds, so could authors clarify whether age 25 still counts as youth/young person?

- Line 171-174: could authors add more detail about who is and is not included in this study (do they need to have a diagnosed mental health condition? What about things like eating disorders? What about other neurological or intellectual impairments? What if people have multiple conditions? Would you include any gender, age, ethnicity, any country, etc. What about pregnant individuals? People using alcohol or drugs?)

- Line 191-194: This section should only focus on context (ie. Clinical setting/environment), so any details about participants and social prescribing should be removed from this section. Instead, more detail about what contexts are and are not considered for inclusion is needed (e.g., what about hospitals? Emergency departments? Inpatient settings? In-patient mental health settings? Will you consider studies where the individuals are admitted to an inpatient setting but they have been referred to a community program or will you only consider studies that take place in the setting where they were referred to via social prescribing? What about primary care, community programs, etc.). Please add more detail about what settings are in versus out.

- Table 1 should include all the inclusion/exclusion criteria (for PCC, not just for the types of studies)

- Will you consider studies that are not in English but can be translated to English?

- What about study design? Please outline what types of studies you will vs won’t include (reviews? Protcols? Grey literature?)

- Line 219: How will you complete the expert consultation? Do you know individuals in these organizations who are willing to provide input or are you going to reach out and see who responds? What exactly will their role be? What if they don’t respond or cooperate?

- Table 2: Do you have a librarian to help with the search strategy? Based on table 2, there are some notable limitations with the proposed search. For example, authors should use truncation to capture any related/similar terms, such as adoles* to capture adolescent, adolescence, and adolescents. Depending on the database, you should also use MeSH terms to capture certain topics. Please review the search strategy with a librarian and include an example of a search that will be conducted in one of your databases, like CINAHL, and include this in your table 2

- Table 3: some other details to include: study design, age of participants, study setting

- Table 3: Can you clarify what is meant by MeSH terms in this table? What if studies don’t use MeSH terms (this is data-base dependent), or do you mean ‘key words’? I’m not sure this information will be available for every paper so I’m not sure what value it adds. Rather, you might want to consider a deeper analysis into the way that social prescribing is described in studies if you want to understand how it is reported. Is there a social prescribing framework or definition you could use to inform this?

- Line 261: should say ‘synthesize’ not ‘synthesis’

- Line 261-264: See previous comments about MeSH terms

- Line 261-264: more detail about the synthesis approach is needed; Will authors report findings in writing, in tables, both? Are there other ways to describe how social prescribing is outlined across papers? How will you determine whether studies truly used social prescribing or not?

- Consultation: I like the inclusion of patients/families here! Can you include detail about when this step will take place? Will stakeholders be identified at the outset or will consultations only happen after the review is complete and findings shared with these groups?

Reviewer #2: This paper is a protocol of a scoping review on social prescribing for the mental health of young people and children aged up to 25 years old. The manuscript is well written and the protocol for the scoping review is thorough and technically sound. The rationale for the study is clear and valid. The methodology is reported in detail. The additional step of consultation is excellent and adds to the validity of the study.

Some aspects of the protocol that can be made better:

1. While the methods sections is extremely well written, succinct and clear, I I feel that the Introduction section of the paper could be improved, especially in making it succinct and clearer. For example, on one hand, paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 (paragraphs about young people’s mental health) can be considerably shortened. On the other hand, the paragraphs specifically talking about social prescribing can be improved – for example, for readers unfamiliar with the concept of social prescribing, a brief overview of history of the concept across different countries would be important. Currently, the manuscript gives the impression that social prescribing emerged only around 2016. It would be important to clarify that while the term is relatively new the practice is much older.

2. Specific details on the planned consultation would be useful including how many consultations, of what duration, with how many people, how will they be structured, how will they inform the protocol, how will they inform the review. While it makes sense that an IRB approval may not be required for the consultation, it is important to outline the ethical considerations for these consultations.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Locating the evidence for children and young people social prescribing: Where to start? A scoping review protocol

PONE-D-24-11234R1

Dear Dr. Feather,

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,

Apurva kumar Pandya, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions?

The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses?

The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable?

Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics.

You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study.

(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: All earlier comments have been addressed to reasonable satisfaction and the paper is recommended for publication.

Reviewer #3: 1) Abstract is well-written.

2) Introduction is well written, but there is a scope to make it more concise.

3) Methodology is well structured addressing all the comments provided by the reviewers initially.

4) Data extraction section is well-written.

The previous reviewers' comments have been addressed and incorporated correctly.

Reviewer #4: Introduction and Rationale:

The introduction emphasizes the increasing acknowledgment of social prescribing as a valuable approach for addressing mental health issues in children and young people. This section is well-crafted and effectively clarifies the importance of social prescribing as a tool in the mental health landscape, particularly for younger populations. By connecting these points, the introduction lays a strong foundation for understanding the relevance and necessity of integrating social prescribing into mental health care strategies for children and adolescents.

Research Gaps and Justification:

The rationale for utilizing a scoping review methodology is well-founded and thoroughly explained. This approach is justified by the need to map out the existing research landscape, identify gaps, and provide a comprehensive overview of the current knowledge on the topic.

Methodology:

The method is clearly articulated, with each step described in a detailed and understandable manner. The clarity and precision with which the methodology is presented contribute to the overall robustness and credibility of the review, making it a valuable tool for systematically mapping the existing research landscape. The adoption of the six-stage framework for the scoping review is both highly appropriate and skillfully executed. This well-established framework guides the review process through each critical phase, from defining the research question to collating and summarizing the data, ensuring a comprehensive exploration of the topic.

Overall Structure:

The paper is thoughtfully organized and highly readable, with a clear and logical flow that guides the reader through the content seamlessly. Each section is well-defined and contributes meaningfully to the overall narrative, ensuring that the paper is easy to follow. The structure effectively supports the presentation of the research, making complex information accessible and engaging. The coherence and clarity of the organization enhance the reader's understanding, allowing the key points and arguments to be conveyed with impact.

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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 #2: Yes: Harikeerthan Raghuram

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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