PONE-D-21-11310

Healthcare Worker’s Emotions, Perceived Stressors and Coping Mechanisms During the COVID-19 Pandemic

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Rose,

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Ismaeel Yunusa, PharmD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Please submit a revised version along with s STROBE (https://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/strobe/) checklist for reporting observational cross-sectional studies. Also concise your Introduction to 3-4 paragraphs. This will encourage busy physicians to read your interesting 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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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: No

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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: This is a very timely manuscript exploring the perceived stressors and coping mechanisms as experienced by HCWs, who were in contact with COVID19 patients during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic at Stamford hospital.

It is a very detailed questionnaire based cross sectional survey. Although I agree with the statistical methods employed, it is quite confusing to interpret the questions answered by the study participants.

It would be more clear and easy to follow if the questions and its responses were answered as sliding scale with percentages of responses for all the 5 likert scale responses to get a sense of how each question was answered across the whole group or within subgroups specified by the authors.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting and relevant study. The authors aimed to address a timely research and clinical gap of knowledge among Healthcare workers (HCWs). The paper is generally well written and structured. However, in my opinion the paper has a major limitation in regards to the data analyses. The data were not tested for statistical assumptions for ANOVA such as normality test, etc., prior to the analysis. So, it is not possible to know if the ANOVA used in the analysis was appropriate or not. Using the ANOVA test inappropriately can invalidate the results and the study's conclusion. I will suggest the authors to run the analysis again (to test the assumptions) to see if the ANOVA or Kruskall Wallis is most suitable for this data.

2. The response is very low, and the authors did not mention how the rate was calculated in the methods section. the authors failed to weigh the study samples, the literature suggests "weighing" a study sample when a response rate is around 20% (Jack 2008).

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2384218/#:~:text=Response%20rates%20approximating%2060%25%20for,of%20%E2%89%A5%2080%25%20is%20expected.)

The authors should state the efforts made to improve the response rate.

3. In the methods section, it was not clear how the data was collected? was it face-to-face, via email etc.

4.No sample size calculation.

5. Over 80% of the sample were females. This should be mentioned in the limitation section.

6. I will suggest the first paragraph of the discussion section to explain the key findings and how it answer the research questions.

7. The conclusion sectin should be brief and focus on the main study findings.

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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.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ibrahim Jatau Abubakar

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Healthcare Worker’s Emotions, Perceived Stressors and Coping Mechanisms During the COVID-19 Pandemic

PONE-D-21-11310R1

Dear Dr. Rose,

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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Kind regards,

Ismaeel Yunusa, PharmD, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

In tables 2-6, kindly have table footnotes where you clarify that in the last column (Post-hoc), what you are reporting is pairwise p values. Also, replace 'v' with 'vs'. Tables should be self-explanatory, which may include clarifications in a footnote whenever necessary.

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 #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 #2: (No Response)

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

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 #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 #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 #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 #2: Yes: Ibrahim Jatau Abubakar