Case Study Protocol to Evaluate the Impact of Training Intervention on Cleaners’ Knowledge Level, Perceptions and Practices regarding Correct Cleaning Techniques at Selected Care Facilities in Limpopo Province, South Africa
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsNursing Reports (ISSN 2039-4403)
Manuscript ID: nursrep-2773031(RE2)
Title: Case Study Protocol to Evaluate the Impact of Training Intervention on Cleaners’ Knowledge Level, Perceptions and Practices regarding Correct Cleaning Techniques at Selected Health Care Facilities in Limpopo Province, South Africa
The authors tried to make efforts to improve the manuscript. Unfortunately, it looks like it needs to be Revised in the current version.
Comments:
2.LITERATURE REVIEW
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
2.1 Study approach and design
ü As above, the numbering has not yet been modified.
ü 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS--> I think the title should be changed to “Methodology”
ü When submitting the final revised version: It is basic etiquette to submit the final revised version (to make it easier for the reader to read) rather than keeping it in the review format in Word.
In general, it is recommended that authors submit a list of changes or a rebuttal against each point that is being raised when they submit the revised manuscript. Thus, authors must fill out and submit a separate comment response form that is not in the current format.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Moderate editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear Editor
All comments made by the reviewer were agreed with and corrected.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper is very important to evaluate the impact of training intervention on cleaners’ knowledge levels and practices. But there are some problems in this paper.
1.Please the author read carefully all context, some language or words must be revised.Please seek to find the English native to change the language. Please read carefully and revise them.
2. The experiment maybe designed by the randomized intervention experiments, with some sample be intervented and another sample not be intervened. If do this, the result maybe more reasonable.
3. Please explain the reason and process that why and how choose the healthcare facilities in Table 1. And please add the planned sample number of cleaners in every healthcare facilities.
4. Please the author add the short and long term interventions of the training, the time between pre-test and intervention is six months, the post-test is after 12 months, which is very long.
5. Please the author explain why use the COVID-19 standard precautions of hand sanitization, social distancing and wearing of masks. It is very strict, so the genreal process of cleaning is not similar with this.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
English is not very good, so the reviewer suggest the authors to revise the english smoothly.
Author Response
Dear Editor
All comments made by the reviewer were agreed to and corrected.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsInitially, I would like to congratulate the group for the initiative to create this protocol that may be useful worldwide, especially in developing countries, the few points that need revision are presented below.
1. In the introduction section, just after the fourth sentence, which ends in "among the staff of the facility [1]", the term CDC refers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - the word center is misspelled (Centre) and should be spelled as Center.
2. Still in the introduction, the same mistake is repeated in the first mention of the European Center for disease prevention and control (EUCDC) - the word Center is mispelled as centre.
3. LMIC is the acronym for low and middle income countries? If so, it should appear right after the first citation of the term low and middle income countries at the beginning of the fourth paragraph.
4. I had difficulties in understanding some points of the methodology, in particular items 2.8 and 2.9.
I believe that this difficulty has occurred not because of the content of them, but because of the way it is presented, in item 2.8 there is an extensive paragraph where the method is presented, I suggest that this paragraph be broken down into smaller paragraphs and the method be better described, more gradually .
In item 2.9, which deals with the analysis, there is no description of how possible subjective interpretations will be handled based on the understanding of the participants' responses, the group responsible for the protocol does not consider using softwares, such as textual data analysis program to analyze the content and interrelation of the text, in order to minimize the subjective interpretation biases, especially considering that these programs perform clustering of terms and still present the results of relevance and statistical significance, this would bring more robustness to the protocol and minimize possible biases ? If there is no consideration about using such programs, it would be interesting and important to discuss the strategy to avoid interpretation biases.
Author Response
All comments raised were attended to
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsNursing Reports (ISSN 2039-4403)
Manuscript ID: nursrep-2268313
Title: Study protocol to assess the impact of training intervention on cleaners’ knowledge level, perceptions, and cleaning practices at selected healthcare facilities in Limpopo Province, South Africa.
① The manuscript evaluated that the authors tried to analyze the effect of training intervention on the knowledge level, perceptions, and cleaning practices of cleaning workers. However, honestly, what the authors were trying to provide is unclear.
② The research period was proposed to analyze the knowledge level, perceptions, and cleaning practices of cleaning workers through 3 steps during one year from March 2023 to March 2024. However, the employee has to assume that there is no change from year to year and that everything is the same environment. Therefore, the summited paper seems that a model proposal for analyzing training intervention is fitter.
③ Introduction: Background of the study - comparison with previous studies - research necessary - research purpose. It is recommended that some of the contents of the introduction be rearranged into a literature review part.
④ Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, the meaning, theoretical/practical value, limitations, and future research direction of the study should be presented.
⑤ As study question: What is the impact of training intervention on cleaners' knowledge level, perceptions, and practices required to meet the standards for infection and control in healthcare facilities as outlined in the IPC frameworks of SA?
⑥ There needs to be more consistency in the research questions, analysis process, and analysis results. Also, the research question needs to be corrected in the present state.
⑦ The references must be indicated.
Environmental surface cleaning is globally regarded as a fundamental intervention for infection prevention and control (IPC) including healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). –(who? What year?)
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines HAIs as: "infections occurring in patients during the process of care in a hospital or other healthcare facility, which was not present or incubating at the time of admission (WHO, What year?)
⑧ As a reviewer, I recommend empirical research based on a research model by collecting data for one year.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
All comments raised were attended to point by point.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsNursing Reports (ISSN 2039-4403)
Manuscript ID: nursrep-2268313(RE1)
Title: Study protocol to assess the impact of training intervention on cleaners’ knowledge level, perceptions, and cleaning practices at selected healthcare facilities in Limpopo Province, South Africa.
The authors tried to their efforts for improving the manuscript. Unfortunately, however, my comments were not reflected well.
ü Comments1 in first review:
Although the authors have divided them into sub-part areas, the introduction contains the entire contents of this study. The introductory part is not written by dividing it into detailed fields.
Introduction has to include background of the study, comparison with previous studies, research necessary, and research purpose. Not like: 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8
1. INTRODUCTION: background of the study, comparison with previous studies, research necessary, and research purpose, etc.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW: review of previous studies related to this study, discussion of operational definitions of variables used for the purpose of this study, measurement variables, etc.
Therefore, the introduction of currently revised paper should be divided into “1. INTRODUCTION” and “2. LITERATURE REVIEW”, and the subdivision (1.1, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8,) should be removed.
Please refer to the format of other published related studies.
ü Comments 5 in first review:
As study question: What is the impact of training intervention on cleaners' knowledge level, perceptions, and practices required to meet the standards for infection and control in healthcare facilities as outlined in the IPC frameworks of SA? --à
What is the impact of training intervention on health facilities cleaners’ knowledge level, perceptions, and practices in Limpopo province, South Africa ?
What is the analysis result for the research question?
ü Comments 6 in first review:
There needs to be more consistency in the research questions, analysis process, and analysis results. Also, the research question needs to be corrected in the present state.
It's clearly not consistent.
ü In general, authors are recommended that authors may submit a list of changes or a rebuttal against each point which is being raised when you submit the revised manuscript. Thus, authors must fill out and submit a separate comment response form that is not in the current format.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer
Thank you for giving me clarity on comments to improve the standard of my protocol. Attached, kindly find point by point response form, with details of corrections I made.
Kind regards
Author
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
