Randomized controlled trial: Quantifying the impact of disclosing uncertainty on adherence to hypothetical health recommendations

Hannah Mendoza; Lucy D’Agostino McGowan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278263

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 6, 2022
13 Jun 2022 Decision Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor PONE-D-22-13360Quantifying the Impact of Disclosing Uncertainty on Health Decision MakingPLOS ONE Dear Dr. D'Agostino McGowan, 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 Jul 28 2022 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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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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 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. 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The title of this paper is not appropriate for the content. Consider revising it by colouring it with some specific elements of the research work 2. There should be a brief description of how the recruitment of participants was conducted – reproducible explanation. 3. Conclusion in the abstract should more precise. The present conclusion is vague. 4. The conclusion in the body of the paper was not clearly indicated 5. I consider some of the authorities cited in this work as archaic. It may be more appropriate to cite more current authorities (if available) for issues that are rapidly changing ****** 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? 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Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278263.r001
Revision 1
16 Sep 2022 Author Response Thank you for your helpful comments, please find a point by point response below. 1. The title of this paper is not appropriate for the content. Consider revising it by colouring it with some specific elements of the research work We have updated the title to read: Randomized Controlled Trial: Quantifying the Impact of Disclosing Uncertainty on Adherence to Hypothetical Health Recommendations 2. There should be a brief description of how the recruitment of participants was conducted – reproducible explanation. The section "Participant recruitment and eligibility" covers this topic. We have added details to specify what recruitment via Prolific entails. 3. Conclusion in the abstract should more precise. The present conclusion is vague. We have updated the conclusion in the abstract to be more specific 4. The conclusion in the body of the paper was not clearly indicated We have added a conclusion section that reads: In this randomized controlled trial we observed that disclosing elements of uncertainty in an initial public health statement will change the likelihood that participants will accept new, different advice that arises as more evidence is uncovered. The direction of this effect differed based on whether the participants indicated that they would agree with the final recommendation at baseline. Specifically, among participants who were more likely to agree with the final recommendation at baseline, those who were shown uncertainty initially were less likely to agree with the final recommendation compared to those who were not. Conversely, among participants who were less likely to agree with the final recommendation at baseline, those who were shown uncertainty initially were more likely to agree with the final recommendation compared to those who were not. 5. I consider some of the authorities cited in this work as archaic. It may be more appropriate to cite more current authorities (if available) for issues that are rapidly changing Thank you, we have added several citations to the introduction in an effort to cite current authorities on the topic. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response-to-Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278263.r002
14 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor Randomized Controlled Trial: Quantifying the Impact of Disclosing Uncertainty on Adherence to Hypothetical Health Recommendations PONE-D-22-13360R1 Dear Dr. D'Agostino McGowan, 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 for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, 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, Felix Bongomin, MB ChB, MSc, MMed, FECMM 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 ******** 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 ****** 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 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: All concerns have been satisfactorily addressed. I appreciate the authors for their attendance to the details of the review comments. ****** 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: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278263.r003
Formally Accepted
15 Nov 2022 Acceptance Letter - Felix Bongomin, Editor PONE-D-22-13360R1 Randomized Controlled Trial: Quantifying the Impact of Disclosing Uncertainty on Adherence to Hypothetical Health Recommendations Dear Dr. D'Agostino McGowan: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. 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 plosone@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. Felix Bongomin Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278263.r004

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