Dear Dr. Rhodes,

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 29 2025 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.

• 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,

Taiwo Opeyemi Aremu, MD, MPH, PhD

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 data set consists of interview transcripts. Can you please confirm that all participants gave consent for interview transcript to be published?

If they DID provide consent for these transcripts to be published, please also confirm that the transcripts do not contain any potentially identifying information (or let us know if the participants consented to having their personal details published and made publicly available). We consider the following details to be identifying information:

- Names, nicknames, and initials

- Age more specific than round numbers

- GPS coordinates, physical addresses, IP addresses, email addresses

- Information in small sample sizes (e.g. 40 students from X class in X year at X university)

- Specific dates (e.g. visit dates, interview dates)

- ID numbers

Or, if the participants DID NOT provide consent for these transcripts to be published:

- Provide a de-identified version of the data or excerpts of interview responses

- Provide information regarding how these transcripts can be accessed by researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data, including:

a) the grounds for restriction

b) the name of the ethics committee, Institutional Review Board, or third-party organization that is imposing sharing restrictions on the data

c) a non-author, institutional point of contact that is able to field data access queries, in the interest of maintaining long-term data accessibility.

d) Any relevant data set names, URLs, DOIs, etc. that an independent researcher would need in order to request your minimal data set.

For further information on sharing data that contains sensitive participant information, please see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-human-research-participant-data-and-other-sensitive-data

If there are ethical, legal, or third-party restrictions upon your dataset, you must provide all of the following details (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-acceptable-data-access-restrictions):

a. A complete description of the dataset

b. The nature of the restrictions upon the data (ethical, legal, or owned by a third party) and the reasoning behind them

c. The full name of the body imposing the restrictions upon your dataset (ethics committee, institution, data access committee, etc)

d. If the data are owned by a third party, confirmation of whether the authors received any special privileges in accessing the data that other researchers would not have

e. Direct, non-author contact information (preferably email) for the body imposing the restrictions upon the data, to which data access requests can be sent

3. 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.

4. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

[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?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: This manuscript provides a valuable qualitative inquiry into the lived experiences of individuals with long Covid in New Zealand, focusing on an important gap in NZ’s primary care system. Below are the comments to be addressed:

1. Convenience sampling from an online support group may introduce selection bias. Individuals who are active in such forums may be more health-literate or or having more severe symptoms than the general long Covid population.

2. Majority of the participants holding postgraduate degrees, limiting representativeness. It has been listed as one of the limitations of the current study. The authors shall put more emphasis on how this may influence self-advocacy and health system navigation is warranted.

3. The absence of Asian participants raises questions about inclusiveness.

4. The low number of male participants (3 out of 18) may also skew findings.

5. There is limited discussion on whether thematic saturation was reached.

6. The study is over-reliant on subjective interpretation. While narrative inquiry values lived experience, stronger triangulation—such as linking findings to provider perspectives or health system data—would enrich the analysis. The current presentation occasionally risks anecdotal generalisation.

7. Some participant quotes use emotive or colloquial expressions (e.g., “they haven’t known what the ***k to do with me”), which, while authentic, shall be better paraphrased for clarity and professionalism in a peer-reviewed academic journal.

8. The term “gaslighting” is used throughout without clear definition.

9. Implementation science frameworks (e.g., CFIR, RE-AIM) can be used to structure questions and recommendations.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for the invite and opportunity to review this important study regarding long COVID-19 sufferers and their experiences in NZ from a primary healthcare access perspective. The paper included important findings on a neglected area with potentially life changing implications for policy, practice and primary health care service delivery. I also thank the authors for a very readable and accessible manuscript. However, at its current form, there are key unaddressed points in different sections that warrant major revisions.

I attached my comments in a separate file for your information.

**********

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:  YIN-CHENG LIM

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Tamara Al-Obaidi

**********

[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: Plos One_Experiences living with long Covid NZ.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer comments -11082025.docx

Dear Dr. Rhodes,

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 Nov 23 2025 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.

• 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 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,

Taiwo Opeyemi Aremu, MD, MPH, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise. 

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

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: Thanks for the invitation to review the first revised version of this manuscript on “Experiences of accessing primary care by those living with long Covid in New Zealand: a qualitative analysis”. Most of the comments from the reviewers have been addressed satisfactorily. However, there are few questions below to be addressed.

1. There is limited reflexivity statement within the “Methods” section. The authors did not include professional background, prior experience with long Covid in this component. This omission limits readers’ ability to assess how the researchers’ positions may have influenced data collection, interpretation, and thematic analysis.

2. The limitations acknowledge selection bias and overrepresentation of highly educated participants. However, there is no reflection on how this bias may have shaped thematic dominance (e.g., emphasis on self-advocacy). This may limits the transferability to underrepresented groups, particularly Māori and Pacific communities.

3. There is misalignment between abstract conclusion and main conclusion. The abstract conclusion mentions “creative solutions for primary care,” whereas the main conclusion emphasises government investment and allied health utilisation.

4. Minorities-Māori and Pacific participants are represented. However, their voices are not distinctly analysed within the results. This may lead to the missed opportunity to discuss health inequities central to the New Zealand context.

Reviewer #2: I thank the authors for addressing each comment and for adding more information to a satisfactory level.

**********

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:  YIN-CHENG LIM

Reviewer #2: Yes:  Dr Tamara Al-Obaidi

**********

[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

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Experience Long Covid_qualitative PLOS One.docx

Experiences of accessing primary care by those living with long Covid in New Zealand: a qualitative analysis

PONE-D-25-18859R2

Dear Dr. Rhodes,

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. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .

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,

Taiwo Opeyemi Aremu, MD, MPH, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

Reviewer #1: The authors have addressed all comments satisfactorily for the revision 1 and revision 2. I have no further comments to make.

**********

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:  YIN CHENG LIM

**********