Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 20, 2023
Decision Letter - Yih-Kuen Jan, Editor

PONE-D-23-37995Use of patient-centred outcome measures alongside the personal wheelchair budget process in NHS England: a mixed methods approach to exploring the staff and service user experience of using the WATCh and WATCh-AdPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pisavadia,

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 Mar 01 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,

Yih-Kuen Jan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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3. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. 

When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

4. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section: 

"I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: the funding for the the lead author for the study was received from NHS England who had commissioned the initial development of the PCOM study evaluated in the study."

Please confirm that this does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, by including the following statement: "This does not alter our adherence to  PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests).  If there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared. 

Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

5. We noted in your submission details that a portion of your manuscript may have been presented or published elsewhere. [The previous submission to PLOS was pre-published We would wish this to be withdrawn.] Please clarify whether this [conference proceeding or publication] was peer-reviewed and formally published. If this work was previously peer-reviewed and published, in the cover letter please provide the reason that this work does not constitute dual publication and should be included in the current manuscript.

6. In this instance it seems there may be acceptable restrictions in place that prevent the public sharing of your minimal data. However, in line with our goal of ensuring long-term data availability to all interested researchers, PLOS’ Data Policy states that authors cannot be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-acceptable-data-sharing-methods).

Data requests to a non-author institutional point of contact, such as a data access or ethics committee, helps guarantee long term stability and availability of data. Providing interested researchers with a durable point of contact ensures data will be accessible even if an author changes email addresses, institutions, or becomes unavailable to answer requests.

Before we proceed with your manuscript, please also provide non-author contact information (phone/email/hyperlink) for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If no institutional body is available to respond to requests for your minimal data, please consider if there any institutional representatives who did not collaborate in the study, and are not listed as authors on the manuscript, who would be able to hold the data and respond to external requests for data access? If so, please provide their contact information (i.e., email address). Please also provide details on how you will ensure persistent or long-term data storage and availability.

7. Please amend your list of authors on the manuscript to ensure that each author is linked to an affiliation. Authors’ affiliations should reflect the institution where the work was done (if authors moved subsequently, you can also list the new affiliation stating “current affiliation:….” as necessary).

8. 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. 

9. Please upload a copy of Supporting Information Figure/Table/etc. S5 Dataset which you refer to in your text on page 35.

10. 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.

[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

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: No

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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

Reviewer #2: 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

Reviewer #2: 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: This study aimed to assess the use of the WATCh and the WATCh-Ad assess for outcome achievement in wheelchair user and service user. This paper is the useful study that can improve the assessment and the PWB service. I think this manuscript should be accepted. However, there are little suggestion to improve the rationale and gap of this study. Specific comment for each section is below:

Method

Page 15 Line 158 : Is the author have the evident about the validity and reliability of WATCh and the WATCh-Ad ? Please present the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. and it can be used as the evidence in discussion part.

Page 19 Line 262 : For quantitative analysis, why this study was not use comparative statistics for analysis score between pretest and follow up period?

Results

Page 24 Line 336-338: Please add percentage after number in the problems that were reported

Discussion

Page 36 Line 617 : In the result section, there are report some of the disadvantage and limitation of WATCh and the WATCh-Ad. Please discuss more information to solve this problem and how to apply in service user.

Reviewer #2: Part introduction :

- To ensure that your outcomes aligns seamlessly with your aim. Should add any specific details regarding the desired outcomes and how they will be measured.

Part method :

- The incorporation of a flowchart is recommended to facilitate a clearer understanding of the study protocol among readers.

- Is there a potential impact on the study results by eliminating certain groups of samples? It's important to note that samples from each location represent distinct populations, and their exclusion may have implications for the overall findings.

- Comprehensive information about data analysis, with a focus on addressing rigor and trustworthiness issues, should be included.

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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

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[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: comment from reviewer.pdf
Revision 1

Response to Editor’s comments

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming.

This has been addressed.

2. Consider depositing your raw data in a repository.

Participants could be identifiable from the level of detail required within the information due to small number of sites and subjects.

3.1. ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match.

This has been addressed.

3.2. Provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

Not applicable - no grant numbers ot Addressed.

4. Please include your updated Competing Interests statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

Provided in cover letter.

5. Please clarify whether this [conference proceeding or publication] was peer-reviewed and formally published.

Addressed in cover letter

6. Please also provide non-author contact information (phone/email/hyperlink) for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent.

As Item 2

7. Amend your list of authors on the manuscript to ensure that each author is linked to an affiliation.

This has been addressed.

8. 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.

This has been addressed.

9. Please upload a copy of Supporting Information Figure/Table/etc. S5 Dataset which you refer to in your text on page 35.

Provided as S6 and S7 (New S4 flowchart)

10. 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.

This has been addressed.

Response to Reviewer 1’s comments

1. Method Page 15 Line 158 : Is the author have the evident about the validity and reliability of WATCh and the WATCh-Ad ? Please present the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. and it can be used as the evidence in discussion part.

The WATCh and WATCh-Ad are intended as tools for use by clinicians in their assessment of an individual wheelchair user's needs, along with the user or their carer, based on aspects of their life that could be impacted by their personal circumstances and need for equipment. They are not intended to be used to make comparisons between groups of users, different services or equipment, for which other measures are available; we have attempted to make this clear in the paper (see lines 604-607). The outcomes areas were determined from previous work (see references #7 and #8).

2. Method Page 19 Line 262 : For quantitative analysis, why this study was not use comparative statistics for analysis score between pretest and follow up period?

The scoring system aims to indicate any change in the level of satisfaction before and after receipt of the equipment for an individual service user. They are not appropriate for use to make comparisons between groups of users, different services or equipment, for which other measures are available; we have attempted to make this clear in the paper (see lines 604-607). For this reason and because of the small number of users receiving their equipment in the time period of the study it was not felt appropriate to carry out statistical analysis, but to present the scoring data. Further comparative analysis is beyond the scope of this study and would not be in-keeping with the purpose of the tools.

3.1. Results Page 24 Line 336-338: Please add percentage after number in the problems that were reported.

This has been addressed.

3.2. Discussion Page 36 Line 617 : In the result section, there are report some of the disadvantage and limitation of WATCh and the WATCh-Ad. Please discuss more information to solve this problem and how to apply in service user.

Lines added into discussion (new lines 639 – 646) and conclusion (line 736)

Response to Reviewer 2 comments

1. Part introduction : To ensure that your outcomes aligns seamlessly with your aim. Should add any specific details regarding the desired outcomes and how they will be measured.

This study was not aiming to obtain desired outcomes but to gain insight into the usability. Last paragraph of introduction has been revised to reflect this (lines 45 – 46).

2. Part Method - The incorporation of a flowchart is recommended to facilitate a clearer understanding of the study protocol among readers.

Flowchart added as new Supplementary File 4

3. Is there a potential impact on the study results by eliminating certain groups of samples? It's important to note that samples from each location represent distinct populations, and their exclusion may have implications for the overall findings.

No groups of samples were omitted - the differences in numbers of staff surveys, user surveys and user tool data analysed was where data was not available or participants did not consent to use of particular data. We therefore believe that this comment is beyond the remit of the study.

4. Comprehensive information about data analysis, with a focus on addressing rigor and trustworthiness issues, should be included.

As noted in 1) the study aimed to obtain descriptive statistics on acceptability of use of the tool use among users and staff to obtain information on users' key outcomes and score before and after receipt of their equipment. We therefore feel that the request to report comprehensive information about data analysis, focussing on rigor and trustworthiness, is beyond the stated remit of this study.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Editor and Reviewers.docx
Decision Letter - Yih-Kuen Jan, Editor

PONE-D-23-37995R1Use of patient-centred outcome measures alongside the personal wheelchair budget process in NHS England: a mixed methods approach to exploring the staff and service user experience of using the WATCh and WATCh-AdPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pisavadia,

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 Jun 06 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,

Yih-Kuen Jan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

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

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

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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 addressed the comments with reasonable reason and evidence. In addition, This paper has the useful information and scientific writing that can improve the assessment of outcome achievement in wheelchair user and service user. In my opinion, this manuscript should be accepted.

Reviewer #2: It appears that the outcomes of the study have not sufficiently addressed the defined objective, specifically in generating guidance for use alongside the PWB process.

Reviewer #3: It is great to see an outcome measurement tool included in service provision to improve the provision quality. The manuscript has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths are that the tool demonstrates feasibility of use and implementation of the tool in clinical settings. This is demonstrated through staff and user testing in this study. The weaknesses lie in the organization and conciseness of the manuscript, lack of methodology to study the aim, and poor literature review. Review comments:

Introduction: The manuscript lists several mobility assessment tools however, there is little comparison on how these tools measure satisfaction related to mobility. For children, the FMA-FC tool was developed in early 2018. The MOBQOL is developed for QOL assessment. Please include these tools in the review and synthesize why the WATCH is piloted in this study than other validated tools.

Psychometric properties of the tool: Please verify if this tool has undergone test-retest reliability testing. If not, please note it as a limitation. This means the responses to the tool outcome items will vary across times for a user and across users with same outcome levels.

Main Aim: As stated on line 134, the main study aim is to compare satisfaction ratings before and after. The question is HOW? Please provide methodology and statistical testing for the same.

Table 1 should be in results. The COVID-19 related content does not seem relevant.

Line 266: Please describe the method to transform qualitative data into themes.

The way results are arranged under subheadings, could you arrange the methods and analyses.

Line 330: separate the mean times for the two cohorts.

Discussion: Please begin this section with the highlights of the study - usability and acceptance of the tool. Was your main aim addressed? The time assessment noted in first parah can follow.

The validity text from 649-670 is redundant as far as the main aim is concerned.

I hope these comments help in improving the manuscript.

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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

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: Anand Mhatre

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[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.

Revision 2

Response to Editor’s comments

Comment (abridged)

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.

Response/ Rebuttal

Assuming this relates to comments from Reviewer 3, the additional work they refer to is already is already cited – see rebuttal #1

Response to Reviewer 3’s comments

Comment (abridged) 1:

Introduction: The manuscript lists several mobility assessment tools however, there is little comparison on how these tools measure satisfaction related to mobility. For children, the FMA-FC tool was developed in early 2018. The MOBQOL is developed for QOL assessment. Please include these tools in the review and synthesize why the WATCH is piloted in this study than other validated tools.

Addressed/Rebuttal

The MoBQoL and FMA-FC are both already cited as references 8 and 16 respectively, however the authors thank the reviewer for highlighting that the FMA has been adapted for use with children as the FMA-FC, and that further explanation is required to explain why the WATCh tools offer a different approach to all those listed. New statements added at lines 95-96, 115, 138-142.

Comment abridged 2

Psychometric properties of the tool: Please verify if this tool has undergone test-retest reliability testing. If not, please note it as a limitation. This means the responses to the tool outcome items will vary across times for a user and across users with same outcome levels.

Addressed/Rebuttal

One of the aims of the WATCh and WATCh-Ad tools is to obtain a baseline measure of satisfaction with the aspects of life highlighted as of most importance to the wheelchair user. This is then compared with a re-score of satisfaction after use of the equipment provided subsequently. Therefore it would be anticipated that the scoring should change with time, hopefully improved, if the equipment has helped meet the user's needs.

Comment (abridged) 3:

Main Aim: As stated on line 134, the main study aim is to compare satisfaction ratings before and after. The question is HOW? Please provide methodology and statistical testing for the same.

Addressed/Rebuttal

The authors thank the reviewer for the comment and have explained that the scoring for the WATCh and WATCh-Ad tools is within-patient only, i.e. the clinician is only looking at any numerical change between assessment and post-equipment scores for that patient. A new statement is added at line 91-93 and summary findings presented at lines 477-480. As the tools are not intended to provide scoring between patients or to be used to compare performance of different equipment or different service providers etc., as each patient's situations and needs are unique.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Editor and Reviewers 20240628.docx
Decision Letter - Yih-Kuen Jan, Editor

PONE-D-23-37995R2Use of patient-centred outcome measures alongside the personal wheelchair budget process in NHS England: a mixed methods approach to exploring the staff and service user experience of using the WATCh and WATCh-AdPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pisavadia,

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 Sep 26 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,

Yih-Kuen Jan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

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.

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

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

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

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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

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #3: No

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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Reviewer #1: This research can be published in this journal. This study can improve wheelchaired service for both of the staff and service user. The authors rewrite manuscripts and give more detail in results and the application of research that reviewer comments.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for addressing the comments. The second comment is about test-retest reliability which is a limitation of the tool before you perform usability testing in this study. I understand the response but that does not verify test-retest unfortunately. The third comment is about the lack of statistical analysis to test your aim which is not in your abstract methods and is present in the manuscript. See Aims: Our aim was to assess outcome achievement at the level of the patient, referred to here as the service user, by comparison of satisfaction ratings with their key outcome areas before and after provision of equipment, and identify aspects of use of the tools important to them and the service provider in order to maximise wider implementation. So, you are comparing satisfaction. In your Analysis section there is not statistical test for that. In the results line 466 onwards and Fig. 3, you simply say higher or lower scores but you want to test for statistical significance as that is your main aim.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Revision 3

Response to editors comment

Item 1

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.

Response

N/A

Response to reviewer 3

Item 6

The second comment is about test-retest reliability which is a limitation of the tool before you perform usability testing in this study. I understand the response but that does not verify test-retest unfortunately. The third comment is about the lack of statistical analysis to test your aim which is not in your abstract methods and is present in the manuscript. See Aims: Our aim was to assess outcome achievement at the level of the patient, referred to here as the service user, by comparison of satisfaction ratings with their key outcome areas before and after provision of equipment, and identify aspects of use of the tools important to them and the service provider in order to maximise wider implementation. So, you are comparing satisfaction. In your Analysis section there is not statistical test for that. In the results line 466 onwards and Fig. 3, you simply say higher or lower scores but you want to test for statistical significance as that is your main aim.

Response

Thank you for clarifying your comments.

Due to the way the tool is implemented with the user through discussion with the service provider, it was considered impractical to carry out a test-retest for the pre- and/or post- provision of equipment phases. Your comments have been noted and we have now added this limitation within the Discussion.

Due to the nature of the study, the protocol planned for descriptive statistics. We do not state within the manuscript that a formal statistical analysis was performed. In response to your comment, we have further clarified in the results section of the abstract that results are simply presented graphically.

Attachments
Attachment
Submitted filename: Response to Editor and Reviewers 20240902.docx
Decision Letter - Yih-Kuen Jan, Editor

Use of patient-centred outcome measures alongside the personal wheelchair budget process in NHS England: a mixed methods approach to exploring the staff and service user experience of using the WATCh and WATCh-Ad

PONE-D-23-37995R3

Dear Dr. Pisavadia,

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Kind regards,

Yih-Kuen Jan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Yih-Kuen Jan, Editor

PONE-D-23-37995R3

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pisavadia,

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on behalf of

Dr. Yih-Kuen Jan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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