PONE-D-24-23942Obstacles to inclusion and threats to civil rights: An integrative review of the social experiences of service dog partnersPLOS ONE

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Overall, this is an excellent manuscript and very well-written. It is quite lengthy, but I’m not sure if that needs to change because everything you’ve included is well-justified. I do wonder about your intended audience, though. I believe this article meets all of the journal publication requirements. I have provided additional points of feedback below.

Title: given the exclusive focus on American-based research, this manuscript title would benefit from reflecting this in some way.

Lines 76-79: “For example, service animals may lawfully be denied entry in spaces where their presence would fundamentally alter the business or entity, such as sterile environments in a hospital or certain parts of a zoo wherein seeing or smelling a service animal could disrupt the resident animals.” – It would be helpful to include the legislation code here or a citation.

Lines 83-85: “Although legislative recognition of service animals in the United States is relatively recent, training service animals – specifically, guide dogs – can be traced back to late 18th century France.” – Given the myriad terms, it would be helpful to explain somewhere exactly which categories fall under “service dog”, beyond just guide dogs. Also, how do “assistance dogs” relate? I see mention later on of service and emotional support animals falling under the broader definition of “assistance animals” except in other publications service and assistance animals are considered synonyms.

Lines 85-86: “Nowadays, there are tens of thousands of human-service dog dyads (“teams”) both nationally and globally (10,11)”: You have only sited ADI and IGDF who solely publish on their membership data. As such, this estimate may not be wholly accurate. I believe a comment on this should be included.

Lines 132-136: How does your article differ from others on this topic? Has anything like this been published before? How does your research uniquely contribute to this area? The word “impact” implies causality, and many of the articles you extracted do not examine causal links. Given the methods and results of your article, your research questions do not fully reflect what you examined and found. I would recommend clarifying that you questioned: “What are the ‘reported/published’ social effects faced by…..”

Methods: Is this type of research exempt from review with your institutional research ethics board?

Line 145: “(3) population comprises individuals with disabilities in the United States” - are disabilities self-determined or do they need to be medically determined?

Lines 159-160: Inclusion criteria included “service miniature horse”, so why was this not a search term?

Lines 202-204: Inclusion criteria included “service miniature horse”, so why were only the social impacts of service dog partners analyzed?

Lines 284-286: Regarding the definitions of stigma and discrimination you adopted, do these reflect the published literature and consensus on these constructs?

Lines 520-522: Can you please clarify what you mean by “…study participants of the reviewed articles recommended…” – do you mean you’re reporting on what past study participants suggested in the articles you examined? Or did you somehow contact past study participants to get their views?

Reviewer #2: This is a comprehensive, well-done review of the social experiences of service dog partners.

- To improve readability it is suggested that sub-headings be added to the Discussion section of the manuscript.

-If available, quotes from service dog partners may enhance the impact of the findings. These could either be in the literature review section or in a table.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Obstacles to inclusion and threats to civil rights: An integrative review of the social experiences of service dog partners in the United States

PONE-D-24-23942R1

Dear Dr. Leighton,

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.

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Kind regards,

Laura Kelly, PhD

Division 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

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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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: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

**********

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: 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 so much for your responses and addressing my questions and feedback. I have no further comments.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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

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