Building Infrastructure to Exploit Evidence from Patient Preference Information (PPI) Studies: A Conceptual Blueprint

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for giving me to review your manuscript. This manuscript is interesting and scientifically meaningful for considering infrastructure to exploit evidence from patient preference information studies. Regarding the contents, the following revision should be considered.

 

The title should include the study design.

 

There are many paragraphs. The author should focus on theory building, the problems and research question paragraphs.

 

The introduction should clearly include the research question of this study.

 

In the introduction, the contents focused mainly on treatment seeking behaviors in PPI. Aging societies impacted on many older people’s help-seeking behaviors including treatment-seeking behaviors. The authors should describe help-seeking behaviors in the aging societies, and lay care and healthcare usage by using the following articles.

- Judd, F., et al., Help-seeking by rural residents for mental health problems: The importance of agrarian values. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2006. 40(9): p. 769-776.

- Pines, J.M., et al., National Trends in Emergency Department Use, Care Patterns, and Quality of Care of Older Adults in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2013. 61(1): p. 12-17.

- Smith, L.K., C. Pope, and J.L. Botha, Patients' help-seeking experiences and delay in cancer presentation: a qualitative synthesis. The Lancet, 2005. 366(9488): p. 825-831.

- Ohta, R., Y. Ryu, and C. Sano, Older People's Help-Seeking Behaviors in Rural Contexts: A Systematic Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022. 19(6).

- Cornally, N. and G. McCarthy, Help-seeking behaviour: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 2011. 17(3): p. 280-288.

- Alshammari, S. and A. Sa, Help-seeking Behavior among Adults in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - A Crosssectional Study. Alternative & Integrative Medicine, 2016. 05.

- Ohta, R., Y. Ryu, and C. Sano, Improvement in Quality of Life through Self-Management of Mild Symptoms during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Prospective Cohort Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022. 19(11).

 

In the sample section of the method, there are no descriptions regarding sample calculation.

This study should contain the discussion part.

 

This study should describe the limitation of sampling bias and the results' applicability to other settings, and the future investigation in the limitation part.

 

Discussion and conclusion may be mixed. The statement is too strong, and the authors should be modest in the statement.

Author Response

Reviewer 1 

Thank you for giving me to review your manuscript. This manuscript is interesting and scientifically meaningful for considering infrastructure to exploit evidence from patient preference information studies. Regarding the contents, the following revision should be considered. 

  

The title should include the study design. 

We thank the reviewer for the appreciation of our work. Since we propose an infrastructure to collect PPI studies, it is difficult to assign an epidemiological study design to this approach and we will be more comfortable with keeping the original title.  

There are many paragraphs. The author should focus on theory building, the problems and research question paragraphs. 

We agree with the reviewer and we re-organized the text accordingly. 

The introduction should clearly include the research question of this study. 

We agree with the reviewer and we clarified the issue in the introduction. 

In the introduction, the contents focused mainly on treatment seeking behaviors in PPI. Aging societies impacted on many older people’s help-seeking behaviors including treatment-seeking behaviors. The authors should describe help-seeking behaviors in the aging societies, and lay care and healthcare usage by using the following articles. 

- Judd, F., et al., Help-seeking by rural residents for mental health problems: The importance of agrarian values. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2006. 40(9): p. 769-776. 

- Pines, J.M., et al., National Trends in Emergency Department Use, Care Patterns, and Quality of Care of Older Adults in the United States. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2013. 61(1): p. 12-17. 

- Smith, L.K., C. Pope, and J.L. Botha, Patients' help-seeking experiences and delay in cancer presentation: a qualitative synthesis. The Lancet, 2005. 366(9488): p. 825-831. 

- Ohta, R., Y. Ryu, and C. Sano, Older People's Help-Seeking Behaviors in Rural Contexts: A Systematic Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022. 19(6). 

- Cornally, N. and G. McCarthy, Help-seeking behaviour: A concept analysis. International Journal of Nursing Practice, 2011. 17(3): p. 280-288. 

- Alshammari, S. and A. Sa, Help-seeking Behavior among Adults in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - A Crosssectional Study. Alternative & Integrative Medicine, 2016. 05. 

- Ohta, R., Y. Ryu, and C. Sano, Improvement in Quality of Life through Self-Management of Mild Symptoms during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Prospective Cohort Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022. 19(11). 

We thank the reviewer for pointing out this. We expanded the introduction and added the references. 

In the sample section of the method, there are no descriptions regarding sample calculation. 

We thank the reviewer for this comment. We believe that sample size calculation is not applicable at this stage since we are not making statistical inference yet. 

This study should contain the discussion part. 

We modified the text accordingly. 

This study should describe the limitation of sampling bias and the results' applicability to other settings, and the future investigation in the limitation part. 

We modified the discussion according to the reviewer’s suggestion. 

Discussion and conclusion may be mixed. The statement is too strong, and the authors should be modest in the statement. 

We de-emphasized our conclusions. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors

 

First of all, I found your work very interesting and of great future application.

In relation to your paper, I would like to point out only formal aspects, namely that the bibliography should be revised since the articles used do not meet the criteria of the journal Applied Science. 

Please adjust the bibliography to the specifications given by the journal.

Author Response

Reviewer 2 

Dear Authors 

  

First of all, I found your work very interesting and of great future application. 

In relation to your paper, I would like to point out only formal aspects, namely that the bibliography should be revised since the articles used do not meet the criteria of the journal Applied Science.  

Please adjust the bibliography to the specifications given by the journal. 

We thank the reviewer for the appreciation of our work. We adjusted the bibliography according to the journal’s specifications. 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has been considerably improved. I think that this paper is suited for inclusion in our journal.