Impact of perceived factors of coronavirus infection on COVID-19 vaccine uptake among healthcare workers in Ghana—Evidence from a cross-sectional analysis

Emmanuel K. Gelyi; John Azaare; Nana Kobea Bonso; Mary Rachael Kpordoxah; Gifty Apiung Aninanya

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0318662

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionAugust 2, 2024
2 Aug 2024 Author Response https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318662.r001
11 Nov 2024 Decision Letter - Seth Agyei Domfeh, Editor PONE-D-24-31145Impact of perceived factors of coronavirus infection on COVID-19 vaccine uptake among health care workers in Ghana - evidence from a cross-sectional analysis.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Azaare, 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 Dec 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. 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(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Well done in describing Impact of perceived factors of coronavirus infection on COVID-19 vaccine uptake among health care workers in Ghana - evidence from a cross-sectional analysis, the authors should be congratulated Reviewer #2: I have added my comments to a copy of the manuscript attached to this. This was easier for my review as the manuscript was not line numbered to facilitate easy review. Please find attached for your attention. ****** 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 . 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Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Manuscript file with GGB Reviews.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318662.r002
Revision 1
30 Dec 2024 Author Response REBUTTAL LETTER PLOSE ONE JOURNAL Dear Editor, RESPONSE TO REVIEWER COMMENTS We thank you and the reviewers for taking time to read and provide comments to our manuscript. The comments were indeed helpful and will add clarity to the paper and enrich the discourse around COVID-19 vaccine uptake. Reviewer 1 had no comments requiring response and we are most grateful for the congratulatory message. Reviewer made valuable comments and we have attempted to respond to all the comments and have now attached our response to each comment as captured below. We hope that you will find them satisfactory and that our manuscript will receive a favorable reviewer outcome. Regards. Signed John Azaare (PhD) (corresponding author) Reviewer 2 Comments: Point by Point Response to reviewer comments. 1. Comment: “Any of the COVID-19 Vaccines administered, I guess?” Response: Yes, any of the administered Covid 19 vaccines. 2. Comment: “It would be better to state the names of the vaccines rather than the manufacturers.” Response: Well, manufacturers produced specific covid-19 vaccines at the time, and therefore names of manufactures represented the vaccine type. This study took no record of the specific generic name of the vaccines. 3. Comment: “This is currently not the case as COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic. Amend the statement.” Response: We agree with the reviewer. Sentence has been amended in the introduction section of the manuscript to reflect current situation. 4. Comment: “Please rewrite this statement in two sentences to make it clearer.” Response: Sentence has been revised and written into two. We hope this makes reading much clearer. 5. Comment: “Compared to the case in Ghana, it would be good to state the exact jurisdictions being referred to.” Response: This sentence has been revised, and the exact places stated. We thank the reviewer for the observation. 6. Comment: “There were purported conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers whose activities influenced vaccine update. How did they change/affect the drive to increase vaccine uptake. Any reference to support this?” Response: The sentence referred to by the reviewer is a general observation that we made taking into accounts the uncertainty that arose at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. We do not find the statement so much authoritative or a statement of fact to require a reference. However, the sentence has been revised, perhaps, to allow for much simpler reflection of our intentions, and we hope this will address the concerns of the reviewer. 7. Comment: “I am not sure this statement is clear.” Response: Statement has been reviewed under ‘ethical approval and consent to participate section. We hope this addresses the reviewer’s concern. 8. Comment: “Did the study consider getting views and responses from non-Christians? I know the respondents were randomized and the Mampong area is largely made up of Christians, it would be good to hear the opinions of the people belonging to different faiths or practices.” Response: As presented in Table 1 of the manuscript, 95.8% of respondent were Christians, consistent with the reviewer assertion about the dominant religion of the study area. Since this study sampled randomly, there was no to segregate the opinion of other religion participants different from Christians. We have thus included into the limitation section as a caution to guide interpretation and application of the results given the skewed nature of the Christians beliefs of the study participants. 9. Comment: “Were participants given the opportunity to choose which vaccine to take?” Response: We than the reviewer for asking this question. While the design of study failed to ask participants whether there was an option to choose which brand they wanted, it is a given that health workers necessarily did not take the vaccine from one site i.e. the study with multiple brands, and therefore, choice of vaccine may have been limited and influenced by availability. This observation is reflected in the discussion section of the manuscript. 10. Comment: “Was there any reported hesitancy in vaccine uptake among the participants, if there were, how many?” Response: While this study did not report exactly the number of study participants who were vaccine hesitant, the study did report (Table XX) that 10% of participant disagree that the vaccine was safe, while 21% disagree that COVID-19 was safe, with a whopping 40% of the study participants had doubts of safety despite WHO recommendations for its use. This statement is reflected in the discussion section. 11. Comment: “Please is there any particular reason to this?” Response: Reviewer query is in reference to an earlier study finding that we referred to in our discussion section. It is difficult for us to the query by attributing reasons to those finding since it is not part of the findings of the current study. 12. Comment: “Can you please look at this statement again. The meaning is not clear.” Response: statement has been revised and re-written in the discussion section appropriately. We hope it addresses the concerns of the reviewer. 13. Comment: “Can you please provide a web address for Reference No. 2. Also, the style of referencing is not uniform throughout the list.” Response: We thank the reviewer for his observation on the referencing format. This have been revised for reference no. 15. However, the web address for reference no. 2 is; https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019 and this has been captured in the reference section. It is not clear to us whether the rewiewer is looking for something different from this. If there are more specifics than what has been addressed, the reviewer may specify and we are glad to address them. Once again, we are most graeful to the reviwers for the time taken to read and provide valauble comments to the manuscript. Thank you. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318662.r003
21 Jan 2025 Decision Letter - Seth Agyei Domfeh, Editor Impact of perceived factors of coronavirus infection on COVID-19 vaccine uptake among health care workers in Ghana - evidence from a cross-sectional analysis. PONE-D-24-31145R1 Dear Dr. Azaare, 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, Seth Agyei Domfeh, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318662.r004
Formally Accepted
Acceptance Letter - Seth Domfeh, Editor PONE-D-24-31145R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Azaare, 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. Seth Agyei Domfeh Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0318662.r005

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