Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionDecember 30, 2023 |
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PONE-D-23-42992Qualitative insights on sexual health counselling from refugee youth in Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda: advancing contextual considerations for brief sexuality-related communication in a humanitarian settingPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Loutet, 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. ==============================Apologies for the delay in review of your article. Please ensure that your revision includes reporting your results inclusive of all aspects of the COREQ reporting standards. Please also attend to the reviewers comments, particularly on alignment of the study aim and reported outcomes, and adjustments to the text to improve reader understanding of the application of theory to your findings. All rebuttals (i.e. disagreements) to reviewer comments must be fully justified, but will be taken into account in review of your resubmission. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 09 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:
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Kind regards, Sebastian Suarez Fuller, 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 2. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. 3. In the online submission form you indicate that your data is not available for proprietary reasons and have provided a contact point for accessing this data. Please note that your current contact point is a co-author on this manuscript. According to our Data Policy, the contact point must not be an author on the manuscript and must be an institutional contact, ideally not an individual. Please revise your data statement to a non-author institutional point of contact, such as a data access or ethics committee, and send this to us via return email. Please also include contact information for the third party organization, and please include the full citation of where the data can be found. [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: No 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: The authors have provided a well written and engaging article providing useful qualitative insights into contextual factors and issues around sexual health counselling and youth health seeking behaviour in a humanitarian setting. This is an important contribution to the literature, and provides useful evidence around the complexities of sexual health needs amongst youth in challenging settings. The secondary analysis of data has also generated important findings which provide information around the feasibility and implementation of sexual health interventions in such settings. However, I have concerns about the way the data have been analysed and presented. Authors have presented that the primary aim of the data collected was to understand HIV testing needs and experiences. Yet, much of the findings have been presented broadly around youth engagement with the healthcare systems and interactions with specific health care providers within the study context. Further, the authors aim to explore considerations for implementing BSC, the findings presented do not adequately present contextual considerations which are transferable to aspects or components of BSC specifically. For example, could findings around relationships built between providers and youth contribute towards "reciprocal and bidirectional conversations" required in BSC? Does information sourced from family and peers contribute to "recognition of user's autonomy?". How were the findings around time to provide counselling related to feasibility of the opportunistic nature of counselling BSC offers in settings of uncertainty such as refugee camps. The authors have rightly acknowledged the limitations of their data and analysis. However, given that the title, abstract and introduction set the study's focus on BSC, there is need to show how the study findings contribute to BSC rather than sexual health counselling and services generally provided. Overall, the study does not adequately or clearly present findings within considerations for BSC. Perhaps the authors can consider how best to present findings or the discussion to draw out more clearly how the results take into consideration aspects of BSC. Most of the findings also are related to doctors as the healthcare providers, have the authors considered the role of other providers in this setting (nurses and sexual health officers) towards feasibility and implementation of BSC in refugee and humanitarian settings? With regards stigma towards HIV, the findings seem to be presented as beliefs of healthcare staff and practitioners rather than perceptions of youth about healthcare practioners. There may be a need to clarify how these findings are presented. Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review your manuscript. This important and understudied subject. Broad comments: The introduction is well written and informative. The methods section requires a complete revision for sentence structure, flow and grammar. Some paragraphs contain sentences that are repetitive or a rewording of something that has already been mentioned. The content of the methods section requires substantial revisions. Please use some kind of qualitative reporting tool (such as the COREQ) to check your basic qualitative reporting. What is the research design? Why do you use an interview guide for a focus group discussion? Your data analysis section does not provide enough detail. Tell the reader how and why you applied the theory. How did you check the coding? Who did you discuss and refine codes with? What did this process look like? How did you use thematic analysis? Why is this the appropriate approach to use? https://www.thematicanalysis.net/understanding-ta/ As this is a deductive approach to analysis, it’s really important that you discuss rigor and reflexivity, and that you didn’t simply see what the theory already sees. There are lots of examples of how to do this. Please look at Operationalising rigor (Lincoln and Guba, 1986, Morse, 2015). Results There is some overlap between sections in the results which need clarification or clearer descriptions as to why they have ended up in the section they are in. For example, the content of relational contexts is all very positive, with people talking about positive interactions with health care workers. But then in symbolic contexts, you talk about womens negative interactions with health care workers, for example: “when the doctor starts the nonsense like you are beautiful, I want your phone number, you develop fear” (woman, age 23, FG#1, ID#3). These negatives experiences with healthcare professionals may make women less receptive to accessing healthcare. I also see this as fitting with ‘relational context’ only that its not a positive interaction. Does your theory only describe relational contexts as positive? If yes, please describe it, otherwise it’s too broad. All of your headings need more description as to what the theory you are using describes. The information in the introduction is not sufficient. Discussion Your discussion is also well written and informative, but I think you can do more to tease out the use of your findings particularly for this group, in this setting. How can we use your results to make things better? What are the resource implications? Can you refer to studies or examples of best practice that could be used alongside your findings? Your limitations are merged with the discussion – its hard to see where the limitations end and the discussion continues. Please amend. ********** 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. 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| Revision 1 |
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Qualitative insights on sexual health counselling from refugee youth in Bidi Bidi Refugee Settlement, Uganda: advancing contextual considerations for brief sexuality-related communication in a humanitarian setting PONE-D-23-42992R1 Dear Dr. Loutet, 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, Sebastian Suarez Fuller, 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 ********** 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: N/A ********** 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 ********** 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 ********** 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: The authors have clarified the comments provided in the earlier draft, and importantly have made this sub-study distinct from the primary study where the data was collected. It is also now clearer how the findings around feasibility and acceptability of sexual health counselling present important considerations for the implementation of brief sexuality related communication. These are reflected across methods, findinsg and discussion sections. Data was not fully provided but the reasoning plus contact of an instutution IRB contact suffices. ********** 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 ********** |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-23-42992R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Loutet, 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. Sebastian Suarez Fuller Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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