Treatment and control of blood pressure in Welsh patients with and without depression: a study of whole-population electronic health records

PONE-D-25-14314

Dear Dr. Ellins,

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Kind regards,

Swapnil Parve, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Dear Authors, please consider the reviewer #2 comment: One of the reason behind the significant finding of early initiation of AHT and better BP control in the depressed group could be white coat effect in this population. There were no data on target organ damage like LVH in echocardiography in depressed Vs non-depressed population or inclusion of 24 hour Ambulatory BP monitoring.If data are available, can be included.

If you do not have anything to add, we may proceed to publication as this does not impact the strength of manuscript.

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: I read with interest the manuscript authored by Elizabeth Ellins titled 'Treatment and control of blood pressure in Welsh patients with and without depression:a study of whole-population electronic health records.'

The research from analysis of electronic records provides details on a large community cohort. The authors have presented the methodology and results in detail and the manuscripot is well written.

I congratulate the authors for their efforts.

Reviewer #2: One of the reason behind the significant finding of early initiation of AHT and better BP control in the depressed group could be white coat effect in this population. There were no data on target organ damage like LVH in echocardiography in depressed Vs non-depressed population or inclusion of 24 hour Ambulatory BP monitoring.If data are available, can be included.

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Reviewer #1: Yes:  Jaideep C Menon

Reviewer #2: No

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