Gender Differences in Perceived Barriers and Benefitsof Whole-Body Electromyostimulation Users: A Pilot Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

COMMENTS FOR THE AUTHOR:

Santana and colleagues describe the gender difference in the barriers/benefits perceived of WB-EMS.  The Introduction section provides complete description of the background and purpose of the study, Methods are clearly described, and Results are logically presented. Although the manuscript is quite well written, it will benefit from English spell check and proofreading.

MINOR suggestions  

Line 34 – It is written “… that adults should engage in at least 150-330 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic PA”. Suggestion – after 150-300 should be noted the time frame for that amount of excersise. For example – 150-300 minutes PER WEEK

Line 35 – the same suggestion as the one before - after 75-150 should be written in which period of time those minutes of intense PA should be done (for example – per week)

Lines 142 – 144 – It is said “. Most participants reported they were already active, with 64.1% (n = 173) already practice another activity besides WB-EMS training” – it is not clear whether the participants gave up their initial exercise while doing WM-EMS. Suggestion: Maybe, it might be a good idea for the authors to write just one sentence to explain more clearly if participants give up their exercise while participating in WB-EMS training.

Line 149 – the font of “Perceived benefits of WB-EMS” is different from the rest of the manuscript.

Line 164 – There is a capital letter in the word “Improve” in the sentence ”…accomplishment (53%), Improve”. It should be written in a lower case.

Lane 209 – The reference is not written correctly. In this sentence the name of the author should be stated, and then the reference should be written in a number. This is the sentence “..in which (Shajrawi, Khalil, Al-Sutry, 209 Qader, & AbuRuz, 2021) states that…”. Suggestion “in which Shajraw and collegues [REF as number] states that the greatest…”

 

MAJOR suggestions

I would suggest that the authors should add a paragraph in the Discussion to explain the significance and impact of the study findings.  It is not stated anywhere in the manuscript if the participants continued to engage in this type of exercise. I also suggest the authors to discuss whether this type of exercise may have encouraged the participants to engage in any type of exercise. I suggest the authors to change a Discussion section a bit.

Author Response

Dear revisor,

Thank you for your time and comments dedicated to improving our research, we believe they have helped us to increase its quality.

Please find our answers after each one of your comments.

Santana and colleagues describe the gender difference in the barriers/benefits perceived of WB-EMS.  The Introduction section provides complete description of the background and purpose of the study, Methods are clearly described, and Results are logically presented. Although the manuscript is quite well written, it will benefit from English spell check and proofreading.

MINOR suggestions  

Line 34 – It is written “… that adults should engage in at least 150-330 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic PA”. Suggestion – after 150-300 should be noted the time frame for that amount of excersise. For example – 150-300 minutes PER WEEK

Thank you for your suggestion. We changed in the manuscript

Line 35 – the same suggestion as the one before - after 75-150 should be written in which period of time those minutes of intense PA should be done (for example – per week)

Thank you for your suggestion. We changed in the manuscript

Lines 142 – 144 – It is said “. Most participants reported they were already active, with 64.1% (n = 173) already practice another activity besides WB-EMS training” – it is not clear whether the participants gave up their initial exercise while doing WM-EMS. Suggestion: Maybe, it might be a good idea for the authors to write just one sentence to explain more clearly if participants give up their exercise while participating in WB-EMS training.

Thank you for your suggestion. We clarified the sentence in the manuscript.

Line 149 – the font of “Perceived benefits of WB-EMS” is different from the rest of the manuscript.

Thank you. We changed in the manuscript

Line 164 – There is a capital letter in the word “Improve” in the sentence ”…accomplishment (53%), Improve”. It should be written in a lower case.

Thank you. We changed in the manuscript

Lane 209 – The reference is not written correctly. In this sentence the name of the author should be stated, and then the reference should be written in a number. This is the sentence “..in which (Shajrawi, Khalil, Al-Sutry, 209 Qader, & AbuRuz, 2021) states that…”. Suggestion “in which Shajraw and collegues [REF as number] states that the greatest…”

 Thank you for your suggestion. We clarified the sentence in the manuscript.

 

 

MAJOR suggestions

I would suggest that the authors should add a paragraph in the Discussion to explain the significance and impact of the study findings.  It is not stated anywhere in the manuscript if the participants continued to engage in this type of exercise. I also suggest the authors to discuss whether this type of exercise may have encouraged the participants to engage in any type of exercise. I suggest the authors to change a Discussion section a bit.

Thank you for your suggestion. We added the following paragraph in the manuscript:

 

Based on the findings of this study, professionals and users of this training system can, on the one hand, try to reduce the barriers found here to reach more and more people and, on the other hand, be able to adapt the training taking into account the benefits perceived by current customers to offer a experience that meets user expectations. Although it has not been studied in this work, we believe that WB-EMS can be a means of attracting and encouraging people to do more physical exercise (especially who do not like or do not want to do conventional training) as suggested by other authors (12, 25).

 

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments

Gender difference in the barriers/benefits perceived of Whole Body Electromyostimulation users: A pilot study

This research as presented in this article was scientifically well conceptualized and executed. However, there a number of areas that require attention to bring it to a level of publication. The authors should attend to the following:

 

Introduction

 

This section is well designed and well-written.

 

Line 57: “ EF ”  should be checked

 

Materials and methods

 

Line 96: “ CCD ”  explain the abbreviation

 

Participants:

Line 99: How was the universe and sample selection made in the study?

 

Data Analysis

Line 127: Which program was used for data analysis?

 

Discussion

Line 209: write the reference with the number

 

Line 241: limitations.  The differences in the duration of exercise of the participants, the region they live in, gender and age add to the limitation

 

References

Line 300, 355, 358, 370 :  References should be checked

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear revisor,

Thank you for your time and comments dedicated to improving our research, we believe they have helped us to increase its quality.

Please find our answers after each one of your comments.

General comments

Gender difference in the barriers/benefits perceived of Whole Body Electromyostimulation users: A pilot study

This research as presented in this article was scientifically well conceptualized and executed. However, there a number of areas that require attention to bring it to a level of publication. The authors should attend to the following: 

Introduction

 

This section is well designed and well-written.

 

Line 57: “ EF ”  should be checked

 

Thank you for your suggestion. We changed in the manuscript.

 

Materials and methods

 

Line 96: “ CCD ”  explain the abbreviation

Thank you for your suggestion. We changed in the manuscript.

 

 

Participants:

Line 99: How was the universe and sample selection made in the study?

It's was a convenience sample. The 5 countries were chosen because it was where the principal investigator had contacts from studios that could collaborate on this study.  This limitation is duly noted in the last paragraph of the manuscript discussion.

 

Data Analysis

Line 127: Which program was used for data analysis?

 

SPSS, AMOS and FACTOR. We have added to the manuscript the versions.

 

Discussion

Line 209: write the reference with the number

Thank you for your suggestion. We changed in the manuscript.

 

 

Line 241: limitations.  The differences in the duration of exercise of the participants, the region they live in, gender and age add to the limitation

Thank you for your suggestion. We add to the limitation in the manuscript

 

 

References

Line 300, 355, 358, 370 :  References should be checked

 Thank you. We checked

Reviewer 3 Report

I have several conceptual suggestions and a number of additional observations I can share for your consideration. First, it would be useful to share with your readers how much this form of exercise costs these individuals. Is cost a barrier to its use? Second, while you suggest time is an issue for those you surveyed,  you do not share how much time it normally takes to engage in this form of exercise? How much time, on average, does this activity require of individuals vis-a-vis the guidelines you cite? Third, I urge you to be sure you are consistent throughout that you are sharing individual perceptions on the valences you report. Fourth, does it matter that all of your respondents volunteered to participate? i.e. are there numbers of people who own these suits but do not use them that might not have volunteered to respond? Might that matter? Here are some other queries to consider:  Lines 64-65 reference what seems to be an important and salient study but you do not share what it found? Line 90 restates your aims but not quite accurately? Can you be more precise? It is clear that your respondents were already active physically. Does that fact matter? Line 139- what does university studies mean? a degree? some college? Is use of this form of exercise mediated by education level? Finally, many descriptors in your figures make no sense as written e.g. "Keep me high blood pressure" (Figure 1), "My family not encourage me," "My partner not encourage me," "take too time," (Figure 2). Items 11 and 9 in Figure 3. Items 12, 11, 9, 8, 4, 3 and 1 in Figure   4. Can you move the study you report in line 234 to your lit review and tie it clearly to your study rationale? You also allude in your discussion on line 208 to "regular population"? I am unable to determine what that means?

Author Response

Dear revisor,

Thank you for your time and comments dedicated to improving our research, we believe they have helped us to increase its quality.

Please find our answers in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

I suggest changing the title. It is unclear why the authors use a slash for barriers and benefits. Usually, a slash is used when specifying similar expressions. I suggest using: barriers and benefits.

 

In the abstract, the authors state the main descriptive results, but they do not provide an answer to the key research question, which is whether there are gender differences in the perception of barriers and benefits of WB-EMS use. The very title of the manuscript suggests that they are dealing with gender differences, in the abstract they state that this is the main objective of the manuscript, and then they do not give the reader an answer to the question of whether there are gender differences in the measured variables.

 

pp. 2, line 57 – the authors use the abbreviation EF without stating earlier in the text what it means, i.e., its full meaning.

 

pp. 2, line 78 – a word is missing. "Some studies that the role of men and women in society is different..." - perhaps "show"?

 

The authors sometimes use the term gender, sometimes sex (e.g., pp. 2, line 82). I propose to standardize and use the term "gender" continuously.

 

pp. 2, line 89 – I suggest reformulating study aim. The study aim cannot be "to report results". It can be to gain insight, examine, understand a phenomenon, etc.

 

pp. 2, lines 91-92 - The authors say the following: "determine the differences between the barriers/benefits by gender" - I wonder if they want to examine the differences between barriers and benefits (comparing barriers and benefits) or if they want to examine gender differences in the perceived barriers and benefits. If it is the latter, then the research aim should be set as follows: "determine the gender differences in the perceived barriers and benefits of WB-EMS use".

 

pp. 3., line 96 – what are CCD users? This is the first time the authors mention this, and it is not clear what CCD means. It is not explained anywhere in the manuscript.

 

pp. 3, line 101 – Participants from which 5 countries? Please describe the sample more thoroughly.

 

2.2. Instruments - Please provide information about the software used to perform CFA.

 

2.3. Procedures - I see that the authors state here which countries the participants come from. This should be moved to section 2.1. Participants and the sample should be described better (in more detail). There is no information about the participants’ gender, age and anything else that would be relevant to this research.

Related to that, I strongly suggest moving the first paragraph of the results (characteristics of sample) to 2.1. Participants because it is the section of text that describes the sample.

 

Figure 1. - this kind of graphic representation of the results, in this case the frequency of participants’ answers, can be interesting for, for example, a conference presentation. But in the case of a scientific paper, it does not give the reader enough information and takes up a lot of space. I suggest that the authors, instead of a graphic display, make a table in which they will show the frequencies and percentages of participants’ answers to each question, and in the last two columns of the table, state the arithmetic means and standard deviations for each question. I suggest this for all identical graphic representations in this work (e.g., Figures 2-4).

 

In the description of the Figure 3, the authors state "Data presented in absolute and relative frequencies; x2 (Pearson's chi-square); df (Degrees of freedom); p (p-value from chi-square test); * (Significant differences between proportions in the z-test. p<0.05)" - but nowhere do they actually state x2, df, p, *

 

pp. 8, line 205 - "The main finding of this study shows us the benefits of the practice..." - I suggest you write "The main finding of this study shows us the PERCEIVED benefits of the practice...". It is important to emphasize all the time that it is about perceived barriers and benefits. The benefits of WB-EMS can be defined by an expert in the field of PA, like the authors of this paper. But the subject of this work is the perception of benefits from the perspective of WB-EMS users.

 

No gender differences were found in the perceived barriers and benefits of using WB-EMS. The authors do not state possible explanations for the absence of gender differences. I strongly suggest that they introduce that aspect of the discussion into their manuscript.

 

Given that the aim of the paper is to examine gender differences, it would be worth commenting on the gender unevenness of the sample in the discussion part of the manuscript.

Author Response

Dear revisor,

Thank you for your time and comments dedicated to improving our research, we believe they have helped us to increase its quality.

Please find our answers in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for the correcting your paper. Wishing you all the best in further studies. 

Sincerely, Iva Lakic

Author Response

REVIEWER 1

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the comments and suggestions made, no doubt thanks to them the manuscript has improved. We wish you all the best.

Reviewer 2 Report

Corrections to the article have been made appropriately

Author Response

REVIEWER 2

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for the time spent in reading and proofreading the manuscript, thanks to this the manuscript has improved. We wish you all the best for the future.

Reviewer 3 Report

Here are some specific comments on this revision. I should say at the outset that I was taken aback to receive a "justification" for unreadable language that consisted of "that was what was there before." It was wrong before as well and should be corrected if this piece is published. It is an embarrassment as now rendered and indefensible in an article in the English language.

I would suggest re-titling this piece "Gender Differences in the Perceived barriers and benefits of ... Study." No period is necessary in the title.

I suggest that lines 71-72 be rewritten to make sense in English.

I still do not know what "University studies" means? (Line 110). Some college? degree? Which sort?  Do they know?

Tense is wrong in line 134.

I cannot make sense of how users could complete a questionnaire before using the suit? Line 141.

What does it mean to "improve overall body?" Line 172.

Do the authors have any idea what respondents meant by "a lot of time?" Line 181.

Grammar, tense and spelling issues in Lines 215, 218.

I point these specific issues up but the entire piece needs a careful editing.

Finally, let me say that I agree with the authors that the study is perception- centered. I raised the question because that fact was not always clearly conveyed in my view. To restate the query/point by way of reply is not a response in my view.

Author Response

REVIEWER 3

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your dedication and contributions to the manuscript. We hope we have responded to all your suggestions. Thanks to them we have been able to improve the paper.

Here are some specific comments on this revision. I should say at the outset that I was taken aback to receive a "justification" for unreadable language that consisted of "that was what was there before." It was wrong before as well and should be corrected if this piece is published. It is an embarrassment as now rendered and indefensible in an article in the English language.

We apologize, we have edited the manuscript and your English has been revised. Thank you very much for your proposal.

 

I would suggest re-titling this piece "Gender Differences in the Perceived barriers and benefits of ... Study." No period is necessary in the title.

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have considered it and made the requested changes.

 

I suggest that lines 71-72 be rewritten to make sense in English.

Thank you, the paragraph has been rewritten.

 

I still do not know what "University studies" means? (Line 110). Some college? degree? Which sort?  Do they know?

Refers to having studied a university degree, it is not specified which degree they have studied.

 

Tense is wrong in line 134.

Thank you, the line has been rewritten.

I cannot make sense of how users could complete a questionnaire before using the suit? Line 141.

Sorry, we have not expressed ourselves correctly, all users met the inclusion criteria among which is to have experience in this type of training at least one month, we meant that some completed the questionnaire before starting the training that day and others did it at the end of the training, we have removed this information to avoid possible confusion.

 

What does it mean to "improve overall body?" Line 172.

It means a improved body composition.

 

Do the authors have any idea what respondents meant by "a lot of time?" Line 181.

A lot of time refers to the fact that the exercise takes time that they do not have on a daily basis (we understand that more than 1 hour).

 

Grammar, tense and spelling issues in Lines 215, 218

Thank you very much, it was a mistake. It has been modified.

 

I point these specific issues up but the entire piece needs a careful editing.

Thank you very much. The article has been reviewed in its entirety by a translation expert.

 

Finally, let me say that I agree with the authors that the study is perception- centered. I raised the question because that fact was not always clearly conveyed in my view. To restate the query/point by way of reply is not a response in my view.

Sorry for our response. You are right. Again, we thank you for all your input.

Reviewer 4 Report

pp. 3, line 110 - what does "with university studies" mean? Does it mean that the participants are mostly university graduates?

I would like to emphasize again that the way the results are presented (graphical representations - Figures 1-4) does not provide enough information to the reader and takes up a lot of space. I suggest that instead of a graphical representation, the authors create a table in which they list the frequencies and percentages of the participants' responses to each question and provide the arithmetic means and standard deviations for each question in the last two columns of the table. I suggest this for all identical graphical representations in this paper (e.g., Figures 1-4).

The discussion is still the most problematic part of this manuscript. No gender differences were found in the perceived barriers and benefits of using WB-EMS. This should have been discussed in more detail in the discussion section of the manuscript. Are there any possible explanations? Are there any study results that are consistent with these findings? Also, the age distribution is quite large. Could this have contributed to the lack of gender differences?

Author Response

REVIEWER 4

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks a lot, about your comments. We have improved the paper because of your suggestions.

1. 3, line 110 - what does "with university studies" mean? Does it mean that the participants are mostly university graduates?

Sorry, yes, it means: with a university education, or with a university degree… Thanks, It has already been modified in the paper

I would like to emphasize again that the way the results are presented (graphical representations - Figures 1-4) does not provide enough information to the reader and takes up a lot of space. I suggest that instead of a graphical representation, the authors create a table in which they list the frequencies and percentages of the participants' responses to each question and provide the arithmetic means and standard deviations for each question in the last two columns of the table. I suggest this for all identical graphical representations in this paper (e.g., Figures 1-4).

Thank you for your suggestion, dear reviewer. We thought the figures might be more eye-catching to the reader. However, we are enclosing the tables as supplementary material in case anyone would like to review them.

The discussion is still the most problematic part of this manuscript. No gender differences were found in the perceived barriers and benefits of using WB-EMS. This should have been discussed in more detail in the discussion section of the manuscript. Are there any possible explanations? Are there any study results that are consistent with these findings? Also, the age distribution is quite large. Could this have contributed to the lack of gender differences?

You are right, thank you very much for your contributions. Because of it, we have added a paragraph explaining the possible reason why we have not found significant differences: “The fact that the sample was small and that there was a large difference in the proportion of women and men (74% against 26%) in the selected sample as well as that the age distribution was quite wide could be one of the main reasons why we have not found significant differences".