Changes in Clinical Training for Nursing Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review reports should contain the following:

• A brief summary This paper is greatly needed for the current understanding of what happened during the pandemic specific to nursing education. The focus on undergrad students is important as that is our next generation of practicing nurses. The paper provides a good overview of some of the teaching modalities that changed during the pandemic specific to a few countries mentioned in the article. 
• General concept comments 
  Article: the general weakness of the paper includes fully articulating the literature in the discussion and conclusion sections. Complete paragraphs were not used and seems to be incomplete in some of the descriptions.
  Review: the author seemed to address a complete review specific to those countries highlighted. The United States was not included which may have added to the richness of the topic, but it is fine the way it is. There is great relevance to this topic in nursing education and important to highlight lessons learned during the pandemic. 
• Specific comments 
• line 51 -54: the author mentions nurse practitioner students, but this article is about undergrad nursing so it is unclear the correlation
• line 133 - incomplete sentence
• there were a few incomplete paragraphs in the discussion and conclusion sections without a full description of the literature findings
• line 141 - mentions I-human and seems like the author should clarify why it was important to highlight that platform in particular - the article is not about specific platforms is my understanding - if they think I-human should be highlighted, expand in that incomplete paragraph more about the platform
• Introduction should be more clear in relation to why Undergrad students are highlighted

Author Response

Dear reviewer
Thank you very much for your appreciation. We are certain that it contributed to a more robust article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Hello and I wish everyone a wonderful year full of achievements!

1. First of all I recommend that the introduction should conclude with a statement that a preliminary search for existing scoping reviews (and ideally systematic reviews too) on the topic has been conducted. 

2. A second recommendation would be to include a general review objective at the end of the introduction. The introduction should conclude with an overarching review objective that captures and aligns with the core elements/mnemonic of the inclusion criteria (e.g. PCC). The objective of the scoping review should indicate what the scoping review project is trying to achieve. The objective may be broad and will guide the scope of the enquiry.

3. Regarding the search strategies chapter - Please provide a explanation of why only studies in English, Portuguese and Spanish were chosen, while other languages were excluded. 

Reviewers should include the languages that will be considered for inclusion in the review as well as the timeframe, with an appropriate and clear justification for choices. Reviewers should include the languages that will be considered for inclusion in the review as well as the timeframe, with an appropriate and clear justification for choices.

4. I recommend highlighting in the text the exclusion criteria of the studies included in the analysis.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer
Thank you very much for your appreciation. We are certain that it contributed to a more robust article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

First, the paper investigates a very interesting av important topic. The review contributes with many interesting aspects and results.

Comments.

·         As a reader I think the background is a little bit sparse and need to be deepened. Add knowledge about what the education looks like before and after covid-19, especially if the change is to be studied and highlighted. Although there are international differences in education regarding what is intended to be studied- and then could discuss.

·         Search strategy- there were searches About "changes" as a concept/term? (Not seen in Table 1), should possibly be discussed later on if it is not included in the search procedure.

·         Pilot searching?

·         Lacks the quality review procedure of included/selected items on which the result is based on, needs to be included as part of the method.  

·         Table 2, it is “Answers to questions”?, from my perspective it is a Table of the included studies.

·         Table 2, can the Table be closed down/Landscape documents instead, for better readability? With table header visible on each page.

·         Review Table 2, so that it is consistent, currently varies how much info it is given in each study (unbalanced). For example, Bide 2021, is sparsely described, but Bradford 2021, detailed described in all parts.

·         The paper lacks method discussion- limitations, search strategy, validity, specificity

·         Should maybe also discuss the different countries, in which the studies were conducted, and how this can affect the result and generalizability. Different countries, different educational arrangements.

·         The Conclusion include the aim and specific number of included studies, maybe revise the two first sentence and only summarize the study in a “wider” perspective.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer
Thank you very much for your appreciation. We are certain that it contributed to a more robust article.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Most of the questions, are not answered- and note small revisions based on desired aspects to increase the scientific quality of the study.

 My comments (not addressed/revised).

-The background is sparse and need to be deepened. Add knowledge about what the education looks like before and after covid-19, especially if the change is to be studied and highlighted. Although there are international differences in education regarding what is intended to be studied- and then could discuss.

-Search strategy- there were searches About "changes" as a concept/term? (Not seen in Table 1), should possibly be discussed later on if it is not included in the search procedure.

-Lacks the quality review procedure of included/selected items on which the result is based on, needs to be included as part of the method.

-Revise Table 2, so that it is consistent, currently varies how much info it is given in each study (unbalanced). For example, Bide 2021, is sparsely described, but Bradford 2021, detailed described in all parts.

-The paper lacks method discussion- limitations, search strategy, validity, specificity

-Should maybe also discuss the different countries, in which the studies were conducted, and how this can affect the result and generalizability.

Author Response

Please see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx