Parental experience of change following VIPP-SD in families with preschool children with externalizing behavior: A qualitative interview study

Nina M. Lassen; Tine Steenhoff; Bryan Cleal; Amanda Frees; Mette S. Væver

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0312607

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 12, 2024
14 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Maiken Pontoppidan, Editor PONE-D-24-23724Parental experience of change following VIPP-SD in families with preschool children with externalizing behavior: A qualitative interview studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lassen, 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. Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. I appreciate the opportunity to review your work, which is well-written and addresses an important aspect of interventions—specifically, the parents' experiences. The methodology is clearly articulated, and the article flows well, making it an important contribution to the field. I concur with Reviewer 1's observation that the paper is somewhat lengthy and could benefit from being shortened for greater impact and clarity. Here are a few additional comments and suggestions: Line 227 (Intervention): Could you clarify who delivered the VIPP-SD intervention? Was the VIPP-SD-trained childcare provider employed at the child’s daycare center, and was the intervention conducted at the daycare or in the child's home? Line 267: I noticed that you mentioned using Nvivo for coding in Line 318. It would be helpful to combine this information earlier on to avoid any confusion about the methods used. Line 501: Could you provide more specific data on how many parents reported observing less externalizing behavior in their children? Adding numbers where possible would strengthen the connection between your data and the themes you present. Table 3 Integration: Table 3 is not well-integrated into the text. I recommend omitting Table 2 (example) and starting the analysis section by presenting the themes in Table 3. This will help to better incorporate Table 3 into the analysis and improve the overall flow. Thank you again for your submission. I look forward to your revisions and believe they will further enhance the quality of this important work. Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 28 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'. 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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, Maiken Pontoppidan Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 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. You have indicated that data is available from "jan.nielsen@psy.ku.dk". Please can we ask you to provide us with a general contact email address for the data requests, so readers can request access in perpetuity. If a general email is not available please provide a link to a website where readers can obtain access to data. 3. 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. 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: N/A Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: Thank you for the opportunity to read about this work to understand the mechanisms of how VIPP-SD worked for this group of parents. Particular strengths of the manuscript include: The data analysis and reflexivity section is thoughtful, relevant and shows a good understanding of the use of reflexive TA The detail on the intervention itself is comprehensive and transparent which helps enormously in qualitative studies where the detail of the intervention is needed to understand how and why it might function. The use of semantic and latent coding has led to well-developed, interesting interpretations of the data, well evidenced, with coherent themes forming plausible central organising concepts. Bravo. The discussion does an excellent job of situating the findings into the context of other research into parenting interventions and pays particular attention to those interventions that propose similar mechanisms. Minor suggestions to improve the manuscript include: The participants section should move to the beginning of the Analysis (which could be more usefully renamed 'findings' or more traditionally 'results') I'm interested in outcomes for parents as a meaningful goal in and of themselves - the discussion hints at this but if the authors agree, it could be made clearer that improving parents' experiences is valid whether or not it leads to improved outcomes for the child. Future research that values how parents experience their parenting journey and the outcomes that are important to them may be valuable. The manuscript mentions the eligibility criteria as relating to child behaviour but not to parenting behaviour, was this collected pre and post training? Do we know which parenting behaviours changed in the group? Were any of them exhibiting harsh and insensitive parenting prior to taking part? Including this (just as a description of the parents) would help contextualise the findings. The manuscript reads very much as a chapter in a thesis, and while it is an excellent chapter, at over 10,000 words I wonder if it will lose attention from the intended audience by being too long as a published paper. I think some careful editing to bring the word count down without losing the important details would make it easier to engage with from a reader's perspective. There's a minor typo on p32 "qualitative research does not" (not "do") Best wishes, Dr Anna Pease Reviewer #2: The research addresses an important aspect of management (parental experiences). It is relevant to readership and contributes to the understanding of issues within the field. The manuscript is well-written and the methodology is clear. The flow of the article is easy to follow and readable. ****** 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: Anna Pease 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312607.r001
Revision 1
2 Sep 2024 Author Response Dear Maiken Pontoppidan We thank you and the reviewers for inviting us to revise and resubmit our manuscript. We have carefully considered and revised our manuscript taking into account the valuable feedback provided by you and the reviewers. Below we address the comments and suggestions point by point with reference to the location of the changes in the revised manuscript. Please note that in the new version of the manuscript we have made additional changes that were not due to the reviewer comments: 1. It came to our attention that we had stated that the interveners participated in a five-day training program, but it was only four days. This has now been corrected (line 213). 2. We have added two illustrative quotes (one from the omitted table (2)) into existing table 2 (previously table 3). 3. We have occasionally made minor corrections as small mistakes or typos came to our attention while shortening the paper (e.g. changed the wording “parents” to “caregivers” in line 549-551, since the mentioned study was regarding foster carers experience) On the behalf of my co-authors, Kind regards, Nina Marie Lassen ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Editors comments: Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. I appreciate the opportunity to review your work, which is well-written and addresses an important aspect of interventions—specifically, the parents' experiences. The methodology is clearly articulated, and the article flows well, making it an important contribution to the field. Thank you for the positive feedback and for acknowledging the importance of investigating parental experiences when evaluating parenting interventions. I concur with Reviewer 1's observation that the paper is somewhat lengthy and could benefit from being shortened for greater impact and clarity. ANSWER: We agree that the paper benefits from being shorter than initially proposed. We have now revised the entire paper and shortened it wherever possible. Several minor changes have been made, along with some larger revisions. All corrections are visible in the document file with track-changes. Here are a few additional comments and suggestions: • Line 227 (Intervention): Could you clarify who delivered the VIPP-SD intervention? Was the VIPP-SD-trained childcare provider employed at the child’s daycare center, and was the intervention conducted at the daycare or in the child's home? ANSWER: We have now clarified that the intervention took place in the family’s home (line 210). Additionally, we have added a line specifying who delivered the intervention (line 211-213). It was delivered by either childcare providers, who did not work in the family’s childcare center, but in another childcare center in the municipality, or by childcare providers who were affiliated as educational/pedagogical consultants within the municipality. The latter group were not regularly present in the child’s childcare center and did not perform typical pedagogical care tasks. • Line 267: I noticed that you mentioned using Nvivo for coding in Line 318. It would be helpful to combine this information earlier on to avoid any confusion about the methods used. ANSWER: We now inform of the use in Nvivo earlier on, particularly in Line 255. • Line 501: Could you provide more specific data on how many parents reported observing less externalizing behavior in their children? Adding numbers where possible would strengthen the connection between your data and the themes you present. ANSWER: Thank you for this comment. We understand why it would be interesting to know how many parents reported such changes. However, in line with the Reflexive Thematic Analysis method, we have deliberately sought not to quantify the data in relation to the themes because this would, in our reading of the approach, be at odds with its underlying methodological principles. Reflexive TA explicitly eschews approaches that seek to link quantity of the data to the quality of the theme. The theme is generated on the basis of its analytical relevance to the central organizing concepts of the analysis. Of course, it is true to say the volume of data on specific topics will influence analytical choices and to some extent this is evinced in our narrative, where we frequently allude to vague quantifications, such as the ‘majority of’, ‘many’ or ‘some’ participants. While we recognize that not adding numbers might be frustrating for some readers, we are hesitant to provide a more quantified rendering of the data because it risks the inference that the quality of the theme (and the relevance of the different experiences) is determined by the number of times it is mentioned or by the number of individuals who mention it. Put differently, from the analytical perspective of Reflexive TA, whether all, some or only one person mentioned a particular topic does not, in and of itself, determine how we should value the theme in a broader analytical purview. • Table 3 Integration: Table 3 is not well-integrated into the text. I recommend omitting Table 2 (example) and starting the analysis section by presenting the themes in Table 3. This will help to better incorporate Table 3 into the analysis and improve the overall flow. ANSWER: Thank you for the recommendations. We agree that it is more appropriate to present the table 3 (now renamed table 2) in the beginning of the analysis (now renamed “Results” following reviewer 1’s requests). It has been moved and we have omitted table 2. ________________________________________ Review Comments to the Author Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to read about this work to understand the mechanisms of how VIPP-SD worked for this group of parents. Particular strengths of the manuscript include: The data analysis and reflexivity section is thoughtful, relevant and shows a good understanding of the use of reflexive TA The detail on the intervention itself is comprehensive and transparent which helps enormously in qualitative studies where the detail of the intervention is needed to understand how and why it might function. The use of semantic and latent coding has led to well-developed, interesting interpretations of the data, well evidenced, with coherent themes forming plausible central organising concepts. Bravo. The discussion does an excellent job of situating the findings into the context of other research into parenting interventions and pays particular attention to those interventions that propose similar mechanisms. Thank you very much for your positive and detailed feedback, it is very helpful. Minor suggestions to improve the manuscript include: The participants section should move to the beginning of the Analysis (which could be more usefully renamed 'findings' or more traditionally 'results') ANSWER: Thank you for these suggestions. We have now renamed the previous “analysis”-section, so it’s called “results” instead. In terms of the participant section we are hesitant to move it to the results section as suggested. It is, to the best of our knowledge, common to provide details on participants in the method section, also in published papers utilizing qualitative methods such as Thematic Analysis. I'm interested in outcomes for parents as a meaningful goal in and of themselves - the discussion hints at this but if the authors agree, it could be made clearer that improving parents' experiences is valid whether or not it leads to improved outcomes for the child. Future research that values how parents experience their parenting journey and the outcomes that are important to them may be valuable. ANSWER: Thank you for highlighting this important point. We agree that the positive outcomes in relation to outcomes relating to parents’ experiences of parenthood and parenting are valid and meaningful in their own right. We have now addressed this further in line 642-647. The manuscript mentions the eligibility criteria as relating to child behaviour but not to parenting behaviour, was this collected pre and post training? Do we know which parenting behaviours changed in the group? Were any of them exhibiting harsh and insensitive parenting prior to taking part? Including this (just as a description of the parents) would help contextualise the findings. ANSWER: Thank you for your comment. We understand that it would be informative to include such outcomes to contextualize the findings. In this paper our primary aim was to explore parents’ experiences qualitatively, and though including quantified measures would help to contextualize these experiences, we do believe the parents’ experiences provide important information in itself. We did use more (currently not evaluated) measures pre and post intervention (surveys and interactions). However, the sample is very small and the overall aim of the study was to explore the feasibility of VIPP-SD and we believe that an examination of the parents’ experience of the intervention is a very first important step in this. However, we hope to include some of the more quantitative data in future papers. The manuscript reads very much as a chapter in a thesis, and while it is an excellent chapter, at over 10,000 words I wonder if it will lose attention from the intended audience by being too long as a published paper. I think some careful editing to bring the word count down without losing the important details would make it easier to engage with from a reader's perspective. ANSWER: We agree that the paper benefits from being shortened. As also replied in relation to Editors related comment above, we have now revised the entire paper and shortened it wherever possible (it is now very close to 10.000 words, including references, excluding tables and abstract). Several minor changes have been made, along with some larger revisions. All corrections are visible in the document file with track-changes. There's a minor typo on p32 "qualitative research does not" (not "do") ANSWER: Thank you for pointing it out, it has been corrected. Best wishes, Dr Anna Pease Reviewer #2: The research addresses an important aspect of management (parental experiences). It is relevant to readership and contributes to the understanding of issues within the field. The manuscript is well-written and the methodology is clear. The flow of the article is easy to follow and readable. Thank you for the positive feedback and for appreciating the study’s contribution to the field. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312607.r002
10 Oct 2024 Decision Letter - Maiken Pontoppidan, Editor Parental experience of change following VIPP-SD in families with preschool children with externalizing behavior: A qualitative interview study PONE-D-24-23724R1 Dear Dr. Lassen, 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. 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Kind regards, Maiken Pontoppidan Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thank you for resubmitting your manuscript titled "Parental Experience of Change Following VIPP-SD in Families with Preschool Children with Externalizing Behavior: A Qualitative Interview Study" to PLOS ONE. I appreciate the opportunity to review your revised manuscript. The changes you have made further enhance the clarity and impact of your work. The manuscript continues to address an important aspect of behavioral interventions by highlighting the parents' experiences. The revisions have strengthened the methodology and presentation of findings, making the paper a valuable contribution to the field. I do agree with Reviewer 1, however, that the paper remains a bit long. A more concise presentation of certain sections could further improve its readability without sacrificing the quality or depth of your analysis. Thank you for your careful attention to the feedback provided during the review process. I look forward to seeing this important work published. 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: Thank you for your responses to the first review. The manuscript is still quite long but all the comments have been addressed well. ****** 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: Yes: Anna Pease ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312607.r003
Formally Accepted
1 Nov 2024 Acceptance Letter - Maiken Pontoppidan, Editor PONE-D-24-23724R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lassen, 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. Maiken Pontoppidan Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312607.r004

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