Exploring access to health and social supports for intimate partner violence (IPV) survivors during stressful life events (SLEs)—A scoping review

Dina Idriss-Wheeler; Xaand Bancroft; Saredo Bouraleh; Marie Buy; Sanni Yaya; Ziad El-Khatib

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0313613

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 5, 2024
14 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Muhammad Shahzad Aslam, Editor PONE-D-24-19008Exploring access to health and social supports for intimate partner violence (IPV) Survivors during stressful life events (SLEs) – A scoping reviewPLOS ONE Dear Dr. El-Khatib, 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. Below are the key points: <ol><li>Rationale and Methodology: Provide a clear rationale for focusing only on high-income countries. Include more detailed methodological considerations within the article, not just in the published protocol. Rationalize the selection of specific databases and the inclusion of individuals aged 13+. <li>Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria: Avoid redundancy in criteria by ensuring exclusion criteria are not merely the opposite of inclusion criteria. Reframe and refine the eligibility criteria to improve clarity, particularly in Table 1. Justify the exclusion of articles focusing on low- and middle-income countries. <li>Data Sources and Search Strategy: Specify the search terms used for grey literature and clarify the selection and screening process for these sources. Consider revising your PRISMA diagram to the 2020 version to better represent grey literature. <li>Results and Discussion: Move detailed reporting of the number of sources from the methods section to the results. Discuss the inclusion of COVID-19-focused articles in light of existing literature on other stressful life events (SLEs). Consider the impact of focusing only on high-income countries on the findings and discuss articles excluded based on this criterion. <li>Visual and Structural Improvements: Integrate Supplement 3 into the main body of the paper to enhance readability. Ensure consistency in punctuation, especially commas, and correct minor typographical errors. 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'. 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, Muhammad Shahzad Aslam, Ph.D.,M.Phil., Pharm-D 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. We note that this manuscript is a systematic review or meta-analysis; our author guidelines therefore require that you use PRISMA guidance to help improve reporting quality of this type of study. Please upload copies of the completed PRISMA checklist as Supporting Information with a file name “PRISMA checklist”. 3. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. 4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [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: 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: Yes 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: This is a very interesting, well written, clear and logical article. It provides results and an in-deep analysis with clear implications for practice and knowledge translation in different socio-structural levels in such a crucial topic as intimate partner violence in the context of stressful life events such as the emergence of COVID. This are some recommendations to strengthen/clarify certain points addressed in the article: - Provide a clear rationale for focusing only on high-income countries. - Authors mention that “The rationale for the inclusion and exclusion criteria is outlined in the published protocol, detailing the types of participants, key concepts, contexts, and evidence sources considered”. However, readers should be able to find all the methodological considerations in the article, at least a brief description. - Consider that the contrary of an inclusion criterion it is not necessary an exclusion criterion, it is repetitive. - Provide rational for the selection of those specific databases. - Include in your analysis and discussion the SDG-2030, as the main agenda that allows us in present to discussion health related phenomena such as IPV as a complex and where multiple health determinants intervene (i.e. gender, geographical location, age etc.). - IPV is a phenomenon crossed by gender as a critical and structural category, however, I consider that the review and its results need to be stated and discussed from this perspective in greater depth. For example, how is it that the national emergency plans (which do exist among the countries) do not consider gender as a category that differentiates health outcomes and whether, after COVID or other emergencies, it has been considered for inclusion. Reviewer #2: Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The authors have done a commendable job in designing and conducting a robust scoping review, synthesizing a large body of literature clearly. This review will make a meaningful contribution to the literature. Below are several specific suggestions to strengthen and clarify the manuscript. I would also encourage the authors to do a careful copy-edit to ensure consistent use of punctuation (particularly oxford commas) and catch the few instances of missing periods or odd spacing. Methods Protocol and Registration • Please add a reference in for Tricco et al. • Consider replacing the statement “Further details on the study can be found elsewhere (23).” And add the phrase “and the protocol has been peer reviewed and published (23).” To the end of the previous sentence. Eligibility criteria • The authors have a comprehensive description of inclusion criteria in Table 1, which is important for readers to understand the review. Readability/comprehension of this table would be improved with some streamlining. o Consider refining each of the PICOT sections to just the element relevant to that section. From my understanding, that could be as follows. � population: individuals 13+ who have experienced IPV (include definition of IPV here) • Articles focusing on service provider perspectives are included in this review, how are they accounted for in the eligibility criteria? � phenomenon of interest/context (intervention in original PICOT): stressful life events (include examples here) high-income countries (specify what definitions/criteria were used here) � comparator: (none) � outcomes: access to formal and informal supports (include definitions of different types of supports here) • Consider reframing the exclusion to positively identify articles that are ineligible, where possible (e.g., population younger than 13) • This section would benefit from the rationale for the inclusion of individuals 13+, I appreciate this might be discussed in depth in the protocol, but the rationale should at least be mentioned here with the protocol referred to as relevant. Information sources and search • What search terms were used when searching for grey literature? Selection of sources of evidence • Consider removing the reporting on the number of records from this section and only reporting on it in the results section. • How were grey literature sources selected and screened? Data charting process • Consider re-wording “automated extraction tool” – that description gives the impression that the extraction was conducted by the Covidence platform, rather than facilitated using their tool. • Some clarification is needed for the sentence “Following consensus, the article was fully extracted and brought forward for the synthesis/analysis phase.” • How were grey literature reports extracted? o Was additional extraction completed after consensus was reached? Or was achieving consensus needed for the article to be considered fully extracted and moved to analysis? Results Synthesis of Sources of Evidence • Consider moving the more fulsome reporting of number of reports from the methods section to this opening section of the results. • Please also include reporting on the grey literature (both in the text and in the PRISMA diagram) • I would strongly encourage the authors to update their PRISMA diagram to the revised 2020 version, which includes a pathway for reporting grey literature https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020-flow-diagram Characteristics of sources of evidence • Consider including the publication date range of the included articles. Given the high percentage of articles focusing on COVID-19, almost all will have been published in 2020 or later. Barriers and Facilitators to accessing IPV services during Stressful Life Events (SLEs) Overall the findings are presented well in a structure that is easy to follow, though long. Supplement 3 is an incredible visual summary of findings that would help make this section more easily digestible. I would highly encourage to editor to allow for inclusion of this visual (or an iteration of it) in the main body of the published work. • In theme 5, the quote from Enarson should have the page number outside of the quotation marks. Discussion Context of Stressful Life Events (SLEs) It seems odd that almost all the included articles focus on COVID-19 given that several reviews have been published in the last few years that have a much broader range of SLE covered (particularly related to climate change and natural disasters), some of which reported on service use and service provider experiences. - E.g., Medzhitova et al. (2023) https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221093688; van Daalen et al. 2022. doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(22)00088-2; Logie et al. 2024. doi:10.1080/17441692.2023.2299718 • Could the authors speak to how this body of literature intersects with the search results for this review? Were the articles noted in the above reviews captured in the search but excluded, or did the search not capture them? A brief discussion of the 44 articles excluded because they were “not about access to services” would likely suffice here. • It would also be interesting to discuss here, how the limitation to high income countries might impact the literature that was included (referring to the three article excluded for being about low and middle income countries). Key Implications for Research, Interventions and Policy • Figure 2 is a great summary of barriers, facilitators, and implications – it might be beneficial to present it earlier in the paper, perhaps adding a section to the end of the findings about implications and recommendations from the articles included in the review. ****** 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: Alma Villa-Rueda 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.0313613.r001
Revision 1
23 Sep 2024 Author Response RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS EDITOR’S COMMENTS Below are the key points: 1. Rationale and Methodology: o Provide a clear rationale for focusing only on high-income countries. RESPONSE: Thank you. The section has been revised accordingly with a clear rationale for focusing on HICs. o Include more detailed methodological considerations within the article, not just in the published protocol. RESPONSE: Thank you. More detailed methodological considerations have been added as requested. o Rationalize the selection of specific databases and the inclusion of individuals aged 13+. RESPONSE: Thank you. Rationale and explanation for the specific databases and inclusion of individuals ages 13+ has been added. 2. Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria: o Avoid redundancy in criteria by ensuring exclusion criteria are not merely the opposite of inclusion criteria. o Reframe and refine the eligibility criteria to improve clarity, particularly in Table 1. o Justify the exclusion of articles focusing on low- and middle-income countries. RESPONSE: Thank you. The entire section has been revised accordingly for a clear concise eligibility criterion along with justification of articles focusing on HIC (as indicated above). 3. Data Sources and Search Strategy: o Specify the search terms used for grey literature and clarify the selection and screening process for these sources. o Consider revising your PRISMA diagram to the 2020 version to better represent grey literature. RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. In our initial manuscript submission, we mentioned plans to include grey literature in our review and this was erroneously transferred to our current manuscript. After searching 8 databases and due to an overwhelming number of peer-reviewed articles that met our inclusion criteria, we ultimately decided against incorporating grey literature and sticking to peer-reviewed articles. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and have taken out the grey literature statement from our submission which was erroneously included. We have provided an explanation of the deviation from the protocol 4. Results and Discussion: o Move detailed reporting of the number of sources from the methods section to the results. RESPONSE: Thank you. Revised as suggested. o Discuss the inclusion of COVID-19-focused articles in light of existing literature on other stressful life events (SLEs). RESPONSE: Thank you. Revised as suggested. Please refer to the section in Reviewer #2. o Consider the impact of focusing only on high-income countries on the findings and discuss articles excluded based on this criterion. RESPONSE: Thank you. Please note that we have provided a rationale for why we focus on HICs. This has been described in detail for both Reviewers below. 5. Visual and Structural Improvements: o Integrate Supplement 3 into the main body of the paper to enhance readability. RESPONSE: Thank you, we have integrated a version of supplement 3 into the body (as Figures 3 and 4). The actual supplement is too large to include so an iteration (as suggested by reviewer #2) has been included. o Ensure consistency in punctuation, especially commas, and correct minor typographical errors. RESPONSE: Thank you, completed. 6. 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 RESPONSE: The style requirements have been considered and incorporated into the revised version. 7. We note that this manuscript is a systematic review or meta-analysis; our author guidelines therefore require that you use PRISMA guidance to help improve reporting quality of this type of study. Please upload copies of the completed PRISMA checklist as Supporting Information with a file name “PRISMA checklist”. RESPONSE: Thank you, this was completed and is submitted as part of the package, entitled PRISMA Fillable Checklist. 8. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. RESPONSE: We have included separate captions for each figure. 9. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. RESPONSE: We have included captions for the Supporting Information at the end of the manuscript and updated in-text citations to match accordingly. REVIEWER #1 COMMENTS This is a very interesting, well written, clear and logical article. It provides results and an in-deep analysis with clear implications for practice and knowledge translation in different socio-structural levels in such a crucial topic as intimate partner violence in the context of stressful life events such as the emergence of COVID. RESPONSE: Thank you for your thoughtful and kind comment. Provide a clear rationale for focusing only on high-income countries. RESPONSE: Thank you. We have added the rationale for focusing only on high-income countries [page 6, lines 103-108]. In summary, the focus is on high-income countries because the scoping review is part of (and to inform) a larger study looking at access to both informal (family, friends, neighbours) and formal violence against women (VAW) supports for individuals who experienced IPV during COVID-19 lockdowns in Canada. Authors mention that “The rationale for the inclusion and exclusion criteria is outlined in the published protocol, detailing the types of participants, key concepts, contexts, and evidence sources considered”. However, readers should be able to find all the methodological considerations in the article, at least a brief description. Consider that the contrary of an inclusion criterion it is not necessary an exclusion criterion, it is repetitive. RESPONSE: Thank you and we agree. The entire Eligibility section has been reorganized and for better readability. Reviewer #2 also provided similar feedback and kindly suggested an approach which we have now incorporated [p. 8-9, lines 133-173]. Provide rational for the selection of those specific databases. RESPONSE: Thank you. The rationale for selection of specific databases was included. [p. 10, lines 181-184]. Include in your analysis and discussion the SDG-2030, as the main agenda that allows us in present to discussion health related phenomena such as IPV as a complex and where multiple health determinants intervene (i.e. gender, geographical location, age etc.). RESPONSE: Thank you for your suggestion of incorporating the discussion on SDG-2030 main agenda in the context of IPV. We have added a section in the human rights social justice lens section of the discussion. [p. 60, lines 982-997). IPV is a phenomenon crossed by gender as a critical and structural category, however, I consider that the review and its results need to be stated and discussed from this perspective in greater depth. For example, how is it that the national emergency plans (which do exist among the countries) do not consider gender as a category that differentiates health outcomes and whether, after COVID or other emergencies, it has been considered for inclusion. RESPONSE: Thank you for your suggestion. We have incorporated a section in the discussion regarding gender as a critical category in emergency planning and management. [p. 58-59, lines 953-964] REVIEWER #2 COMMENTS Thank you for the opportunity to review this manuscript. The authors have done a commendable job in designing and conducting a robust scoping review, synthesizing a large body of literature clearly. This review will make a meaningful contribution to the literature. RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your kind words and comments. Below are several specific suggestions to strengthen and clarify the manuscript. I would also encourage the authors to do a careful copy-edit to ensure consistent use of punctuation (particularly oxford commas) and catch the few instances of missing periods or odd spacing. RESPONSE: Thank you very much. We have reviewed the entire manuscript for consistency in punctuation and missing periods or odd spacing. Methods > Protocol and Registration > Please add a reference in for Tricco et al. RESPONSE: Thank you for catching that; we have now added the reference for Tricco et al. (2018). [p. 6, line 125] Consider replacing the statement “Further details on the study can be found elsewhere (23).” And add the phrase “and the protocol has been peer reviewed and published (23).” To the end of the previous sentence. RESPONSE: Thank you. We have revised the sentence as suggested. [p. 7, lines 126-127] Eligibility criteria The authors have a comprehensive description of inclusion criteria in Table 1, which is important for readers to understand the review. Readability/comprehension of this table would be improved with some streamlining. o Consider refining each of the PICOT sections to just the element relevant to that section. From my understanding, that could be as follows. � population: individuals 13+ who have experienced IPV (include definition of IPV here) • Articles focusing on service provider perspectives are included in this review, how are they accounted for in the eligibility criteria? � phenomenon of interest/context (intervention in original PICOT): stressful life events (include examples here) high-income countries (specify what definitions/criteria were used here) � comparator: (none) � outcomes: access to formal and informal supports (include definitions of different types of supports here) Consider reframing the exclusion to positively identify articles that are ineligible, where possible (e.g., population younger than 13). This section would benefit from the rationale for the inclusion of individuals 13+, I appreciate this might be discussed in depth in the protocol, but the rationale should at least be mentioned here with the protocol referred to as relevant. RESPONSE: RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your comments and wonderful suggestion to organize the eligibility criteria section. Reviewer #1 also provided a similar comment regarding this section. We have revised it accordingly, using your suggestion of PICOR. We have reframed the exclusion criteria and added the rationale for why individuals 13+ were included (p. 8-9, lines 133-173). Information sources and search • What search terms were used when searching for grey literature? RESPONSE: Thank you for bringing this to our attention. In our initial manuscript submission, we mentioned plans to include grey literature in our review. However, after searching 8 databases and due to an overwhelming number of peer-reviewed articles that met our inclusion criteria, we ultimately decided against incorporating grey literature and sticking to peer-reviewed articles. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused and have taken out the grey literature statement from our submission which was erroneously included. We have provided an explanation of the deviation from the protocol [P. 10; lines 184-189]. Selection of sources of evidence • Consider removing the reporting on the number of records from this section and only reporting on it in the results section. RESPONSE: Thank you. We have removed the reporting on the number of records from this section and only reporting on it in the results section. [p.10, lines 192-197]. • How were grey literature sources selected and screened? RESPONSE: Please see above explanation. Data charting process • Consider re-wording “automated extraction tool” – that description gives the impression that the extraction was conducted by the Covidence platform, rather than facilitated using their tool. • Some clarification is needed for the sentence “Following consensus, the article was fully extracted and brought forward for the synthesis/analysis phase.” Was additional extraction completed after consensus was reached? Or was achieving consensus needed for the article to be considered fully extracted and moved to analysis? RESPONSE: Thank you and we agree. Achieving consensus by the two extractors was needed for the article to be considered fully extracted and move to analysis phase. We have revised the section accordingly. [p. 11, lines 216-220] • How were grey literature reports extracted? RESPONSE: Please see above explanation regarding the grey literature. Results Synthesis of Sources of Evidence • Consider moving the more fulsome reporting of number of reports from the methods section to this opening section of the results. RESPONSE: Thank you. We have revised the section accordingly, the fulsome reporting of numbers were moved from the methods to the results section. [p. 12, lines 240-244]. • Please also include reporting on the grey literature (both in the text and in the PRISMA diagram). • I would strongly encourage the authors to update their PRISMA diagram to the revised 2020 version, which includes a pathway for reporting grey literature https://www.prisma-statement.org/prisma-2020-flow-diagram RESPONSE: Thank you very much for the new source and bringing this to our attention. We have updated our PRISMA Diagram as suggested. Characteristics of sources of evidence • Consider including the publication date range of the included articles. Given the high percentage of articles focusing on COVID-19, almost all will have been published in 2020 or later. RESPONSE: Great suggestion, thank you. We have added the sentence on publication date range. [p. 13, lines 252-253] Barriers and Facilitators to accessing IPV services during Stressful Life Events (SLEs) Overall the findings are presented well in a structure that is easy to follow, though long. Supplement 3 is an incredible visual summary of findings that would help make this section more easily digestible. I would highly encourage to editor to allow for inclusion of this visual (or an iteration of it) in the main body of the published work. RESPONSE: Thank you. An iteration of supplement 3 has been included in the body of the paper. • In theme 5, the quote from Enarson should have the page number outside of the quotation marks. RESPONSE: Thank you very much. Revised as suggested. [p. 43, line 582] Discussion Context of Stressful Life Events (SLEs) It seems odd that almost all the included articles focus on COVID-19 given that several reviews have been published in the last few years that have a much broader range of SLE covered (particularly related to climate change and natural disasters), some of which reported on service use and service provider experiences. - E.g., Medzhitova et al. (2023) https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221093688; van Daalen et al. 2022. doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(22)00088-2; Logie et al. 2024. doi:10.1080/17441692.2023.2299718 Could the authors speak to how this body of literature intersects with the search results for this review? Were the articles noted in the above reviews captured in the search but excluded, or did the search not capture them? A brief discussion of the 44 articles excluded because they were “not about access to services” would likely suffice here. RESPONSE: Thank you for your valuable comments. This scoping review specifically focused on accessing or providing formal and informal services from the perspectives of IPV survivors and support providers during Stressful Life Events (SLEs). Our review was not intended to examine the prevalence, incidence, likelihood, or associations between SLEs and IPV or GBV, which explains some of the differences in article inclusion compared to other reviews mentioned. Regarding the specific reviews you noted: - Medzhitova et al. (2023): Among the 24 studies reviewed, 14 were conducted in high-income countries (HICs) and 10 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We excluded the studies from LMICs for reasons discussed in our limitations section. Of the remaining 14 articles from HICs, only 2 discussed access to services during SLEs. The m https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313613.r002
29 Oct 2024 Decision Letter - Muhammad Shahzad Aslam, Editor Exploring access to health and social supports for intimate partner violence (IPV) Survivors during stressful life events (SLEs) – a scoping review PONE-D-24-19008R1 Dear Dr. El-Khatib, 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, Muhammad Shahzad Aslam, Ph.D.,M.Phil., Pharm-D 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: Yes ****** 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 ****** 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: Authors have addressed all the comments in a clear and logic way. Now the article is stated from a specific geographic and temporal space, framed in the current public policy agenda. It adds depth to the gender category. ****** 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: ALMA ANGELICA VILLA RUEDA ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313613.r003
Formally Accepted
17 Nov 2024 Acceptance Letter - Muhammad Shahzad Aslam, Editor PONE-D-24-19008R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. El-Khatib, 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. Muhammad Shahzad Aslam Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313613.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 .