PONE-D-24-32364Social support and symptoms of antenatal depression among women screened for gestational diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study in Northern VietnamPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Nguyen,

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.

I agree with the reviewers that the literature reviewed in the current article is not extensive. The prevalence of GDM among women, particularly in developing and neighboring countries, should be a focal point. Additionally, further studies on social support, GDM, and depression are available and may be reviewed to provide additional insights and emphasize the need for this study.

Regarding data collection, who collected the data? Were they qualified and/or trained to assess depression? This should be addressed in the methodology section.

Were there any adverse events due to depression? If so, how were they handled?

Were women screened for depression prior to recruitment, and were those with depression included in the study?

The study reports that 23% of the women were depressed. Was this information shared with the women or their acquaintances? Were these women provided any support by the researchers?

For the regression analysis presented in Table 2, what is the reference category for OGTT and physical activity?

Lastly, the conclusion should be based on the specific findings of the study. What are the policy implications of this study?

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Ranjan Kumar Prusty, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

I agree with the reviewers that the literature reviewed in the current article is not extensive. The prevalence of GDM among women, particularly in developing and neighboring countries, should be a focal point. Additionally, further studies on social support, GDM, and depression are available and may be reviewed to provide additional insights and emphasize the need for this study.

Regarding data collection, who collected the data? Were they qualified and/or trained to assess depression? This should be addressed in the methodology section.

Were there any adverse events due to depression? If so, how were they handled?

Were women screened for depression prior to recruitment, and were those with depression included in the study?

The study reports that 23% of the women were depressed. Was this information shared with the women or their acquaintances? Were these women provided any support by the researchers?

For the regression analysis presented in Table 2, what is the reference category for OGTT and physical activity?

Lastly, the conclusion should be based on the specific findings of the study. What are the policy implications of this study?

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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: In the abstract:

please provide statistics used. I also suggest to give one more sentence for suggestion for readers. Also, how did you define who have/ dont have depression? For screening tool or diagnosis or else. What does aOR mean? What does CI mean?

In the introduction:

What is the prevalence/incidence of depression among pregnant women and also among GDM? Please review this and write in the introduction.

I think you need to review more about the hormone, diabetes in pregnancy, anatomy and physiology among pregnant women because depression might come from biological factors, hormonal factors, and environmental factors. You wrote only less than one page that could not convince the readers enough. You also talked about stress and depression, which are two concepts, you need to connect that why you should work with the depression instead of stress.

Because you focus on social support, depression, GDM, I suggest you may read both quntitative and qualitative articles. Also, please read more articles related to your research from countries nearby Viet Nam, e.g. feeling and support among pregnant women in Thailand (2020), factors associated with depressive symptoms among women during the antenatal period (2018).

Inclusion criteria might be pregnant women GA 24-28 weeks?

What does Severe Chronic disease covered?

What is the sample size calculation?

Why collected December 2022-Aug 2023?

What is about validity test?

What is the reliability test for SS tool?

How did you do about those having EPDS 10+?

In all tables, if you use abbreviations, please provide full name once!

Some references are old: Ali, 2006, Eaton 1996, etc. I suggest references older than 2015 might be excluded (except theory, tool). I suggest to read some artcle from Thailand, which are close to Viet Nam, such as Phoosuwan wt al, Roomruangwong et al, Pitunupong et al.

Reviewer #2: Authors conduct a cross-sectional study of 823 pregnant women screened for gestational diabetes mellitus to assess the association between social support and symptoms of depression. They reported high prevalence of depression symptoms with 23% and a lack of social support associated with increased odds of depression symptoms. The manuscript was well-prepared and I have only minor comments as below.

1. Clarifications are needed for some measurements. For example, authors classified economic status into three categories but didn’t mention their definition.

2. According to table 2, gestational diabetes mellitus is not an associated factor. What is the reasoning to further conduct the stratified analysis by GDM?

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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: Assoc.Prof.Dr.Nitikorn Phoosuwan

Reviewer #2: No

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Social support and symptoms of antenatal depression among women screened for gestational diabetes mellitus: A cross-sectional study in Northern Vietnam (the VALID II study)

PONE-D-24-32364R1

Dear Dr. Nguyen,

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.

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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,

Ranjan Kumar Prusty, Ph.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

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: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

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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 Response)

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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 revision and your valuable research. I am very satified your work and revision. You have done a good job.

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: Yes: Nitikorn Phoosuwan

Reviewer #2: No

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