The impact of the early COVID-19 pandemic on maternal mental health during pregnancy and postpartum

Catharina Bartmann; Theresa Kimmel; Petra Davidova; Miriam Kalok; Corina Essel; Fadia Ben Ahmed; Rhiannon V. McNeill; Tanja Wolfgang; Andreas Reif; Franz Bahlmann; Achim Wöckel; Patricia Trautmann-Villalba; Ulrike Kämmerer; Sarah Kittel-Schneider

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0310902

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionFebruary 5, 2024
19 Mar 2024 Decision Letter - Ikechukwu Innocent Mbachu, Editor PONE-D-24-04080The impact of the early COVID-19 pandemic on maternal mental health during pregnancy and postpartumPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bartmann, 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 May 03 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, Ikechukwu Innocent Mbachu 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. In the online submission form, you indicated that "The data that support the findings of this study are not openly available due to reasons of sensitivity and are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request." All PLOS journals now require all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript to be freely available to other researchers, either 1. In a public repository, 2. Within the manuscript itself, or 3. Uploaded as supplementary information. This policy applies to all data except where public deposition would breach compliance with the protocol approved by your research ethics board. If your data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons (e.g., public availability would compromise patient privacy), please explain your reasons on resubmission and your exemption request will be escalated for approval. 3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: The authors should respond to the reviewers' queries. [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: Yes ******** 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: No ****** 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: No 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: Introduction: line 64, please rephrase line 64, in the first sentence to enhance understandability. line 74: state full meaning of NICU . Method: State the means of the postpartum follow-ups, virtually or physically or mixed? Reflect the sample size(s). Result: line 240-- grammar check. ... but not was not... Conclusion: Line 329, ... but could negatively and positively influence individual aspects. OF WHAT? You mean aspects of self-confidence and bonding respectively? Please clarify. Reference: Please, manually edit and format most of the references in the reference page. General manuscript presentation not well structured. E.g Seeing result table in the Methodology subsection. Reviewer #2: The manuscript should be impersonal. It is a manuscript not a descriptive essay as the authors depicted in some parts of the manuscript. All pronouns such as, 'we' and our should be removed and replaced appropriately. This was shown in sections such as the abstract, last paragraph in introduction session, Post partum bonding, conclusion etc. ****** 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: Yes: Dr. Sunday O Oriji 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: REVIEWERS COMMENTS.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310902.r001
Revision 1
17 Jun 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, thank you for the appreciation of our work and we are happy to provide a minor revision of the manuscript. We have addressed your 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 Done. 2. In the online submission form, you indicated that "The data that support the findings of this study are not openly available due to reasons of sensitivity and are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request." All PLOS journals now require all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript to be freely available to other researchers, either 1. In a public repository, 2. Within the manuscript itself, or 3. Uploaded as supplementary information. This policy applies to all data except where public deposition would breach compliance with the protocol approved by your research ethics board. If your data cannot be made publicly available for ethical or legal reasons (e.g., public availability would compromise patient privacy), please explain your reasons on resubmission and your exemption request will be escalated for approval. The participants have only consented to the anonymized publication of the summary statistics and therefore we are only able to share the raw pseudonymised data with scientific colleagues on request. This is because publication of the data sets could lead to the subjects being identified via the large amount of information we have collected. 3. Please include your full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of your manuscript file. In your statement, please include the full name of the IRB or ethics committee who approved or waived your study, as well as whether or not you obtained informed written or verbal consent. If consent was waived for your study, please include this information in your statement as well. We have included the full ethics statement in the ‘Methods’ section of our revised manuscript file. 4. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. We have reviewed our reference list and corrected reference 35 and 37: • [35] Spielberger CD, Gorsuch RL, Lushene RE. Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA, 1970: Consulting Psychologists Press • [37] Laux L, Glanzmann P, Schaffner P, Spielberger CD. Das State-Trait-Angstinventar. Theoretische Grundlagen und Handanweisung. Weinheim, 1981: Beltz Test GmbH There was a rather minor erratum of the references which we have included in the reference list. We therefore have two more literature sources. • [9] Villar et al. 2021: Misspelled Author Name in the Byline. JAMA Pediatr. 2022 Jan 1;176(1):104. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4953. Erratum for: JAMA Pediatr. 2021 Aug 1;175(8):817-826. PMID: 34779828; PMCID: PMC8593825. • [47] Lebel et al. 2020: Lebel C, MacKinnon A, Bagshawe M, Tomfohr-Madsen L, Giesbrecht G. Corrigendum to elevated depression and anxiety symptoms among pregnant individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic journal of affective disorders 277 (2020) 5-13. J Affect Disord. 2021 Jan 15;279:377-379. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.10.012. Epub 2020 Nov 18. Erratum for: J Affect Disord. 2020 Dec 1;277:5-13. PMID: 33099052; PMCID: PMC8445275. We have processed the reviewers' comments point by point and commented on them accordingly. We hope that our manuscript now fulfills the criteria for publication. Thank you very much! On behalf of all authors Catharina Bartmann Response to Revieweers: Reviewer #1: Introduction: line 64, please rephrase line 64, in the first sentence to enhance understandability. Many thanks for this hint. We have rephrased the two sentences as suggested. line 74: state full meaning of NICU . NICU means “neonatal intensive care unit”. We noticed by your comment that we had written “NICU” instead of “ICU” (intensive care unit). Since this sentence is about maternal risks, ICU is the correct term and we have explained the abbreviation. Method: State the means of the postpartum follow-ups, virtually or physically or mixed? Thank you, we have added the requested information about the postpartum follow-ups in the methods section. Reflect the sample size(s). We have added the respected sample sized in the method section for clarification. Result: line 240-- grammar check. ... but not was not... Thanks, done. Conclusion: Line 329, ... but could negatively and positively influence individual aspects. OF WHAT? You mean aspects of self-confidence and bonding respectively? Please clarify. Thank you, we have clarified it in the revised conclusion. Reference: Please, manually edit and format most of the references in the reference page. We have reviewed our reference list and corrected reference 35 and 37: • [35] Spielberger CD, Gorsuch RL, Lushene RE. Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA, 1970: Consulting Psychologists Press • [37] Laux L, Glanzmann P, Schaffner P, Spielberger CD. Das State-Trait-Angstinventar. Theoretische Grundlagen und Handanweisung. Weinheim, 1981: Beltz Test GmbH There was a rather minor erratum of the references which we have included in the reference list. We therefore have two more literature sources. • [9] Villar et al. 2021: Misspelled Author Name in the Byline. JAMA Pediatr. 2022 Jan 1;176(1):104. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.4953. Erratum for: JAMA Pediatr. 2021 Aug 1;175(8):817-826. PMID: 34779828; PMCID: PMC8593825. • [47] Lebel et al. 2020: Lebel C, MacKinnon A, Bagshawe M, Tomfohr-Madsen L, Giesbrecht G. Corrigendum to elevated depression and anxiety symptoms among pregnant individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic journal of affective disorders 277 (2020) 5-13. J Affect Disord. 2021 Jan 15;279:377-379. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2020.10.012. Epub 2020 Nov 18. Erratum for: J Affect Disord. 2020 Dec 1;277:5-13. PMID: 33099052; PMCID: PMC8445275. General manuscript presentation not well structured. E.g Seeing result table in the Methodology subsection. Many thanks for this hint. We have included Table 1 in the results section and carefully checked the rest of the structure of the manuscript. Reviewer #2: The manuscript should be impersonal. It is a manuscript not a descriptive essay as the authors depicted in some parts of the manuscript. All pronouns such as, 'we' and our should be removed and replaced appropriately. This was shown in sections such as the abstract, last paragraph in introduction session, Post partum bonding, conclusion etc. Thank you. We replaced the personal pronouns in whole manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_R1_end.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310902.r002
9 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Monia Marchetti, Editor The impact of the early COVID-19 pandemic on maternal mental health during pregnancy and postpartum PONE-D-24-04080R1 Dear Dr. Bartmann 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, Monia Marchetti Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): The revised manuscript accomplished all the requested changes and is suitable for publication. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310902.r003
Formally Accepted
12 Sep 2024 Acceptance Letter - Monia Marchetti, Editor PONE-D-24-04080R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Bartmann, 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. Monia Marchetti Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0310902.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 .