Peer Review History
Original SubmissionMarch 23, 2023 |
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PONE-D-23-07414Force plate methodologies applied to the injury profiling and rehabilitation of sport and tactical athletes: a scoping review protocolPLOS ONE Dear Dr. McMahon, 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. ============================== Both reviewers have recognized the quality of the written work submitted. However, both have pointed out several major areas of concern regarding necessary methodological omissions, which if addressed/included would vastly improve the quality of the work presented. Justification is required for both the need for the scoping review and the protocol itself, highlighting their importance to the 'field', and adhering to reporting standards for review document/papers. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 17 2023 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
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Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests section: "I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: JJM and PC supervise a PhD student whose research which is jointly funded by the University of Salford and Hawkin Dynamics Inc. which is a force plate hardware and software manufacturer. The funders did not and will not have a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." 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Please see our guidelines for more information on what we consider unacceptable restrictions to publicly sharing data: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. Note that it is not acceptable for the authors to be the sole named individuals responsible for ensuring data access. We will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide in your cover letter. 6. We note that this manuscript is a systematic review or meta-analysis; our author guidelines therefore require that you use PRISMA guidance to help improve reporting quality of this type of study. Please upload copies of the completed PRISMA checklist as Supporting Information with a file name “PRISMA checklist”. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #1: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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 Reviewer #2: No ********** 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Efforts to prevent musculoskeletal injuries and improve clinical recovery outcomes remain significant challenges for healthcare providers. More recently, portable force plates have provided new scientific capabilities to potentially identify athletes at risk for sustaining an injury or evaluate functional performance following recovery. Currently, as the authors describe, there has yet to be scoping review of the relevant literature describing the methodologies of force plates among both sport and tactical (law enforcement, first responder/paramedic, etc.) to be used for identifying both injury profiling (injury risk) and rehabilitation (recovery progression). Overall, the manuscript is well-written and the supporting documents (supplementary Tables 1-3) are correctly identified in the current submission. However, significant limitations in the methodological approach leave the scoping review too broad which would significantly reduce the overall scientific impact of resultant findings. The topic is appropriate for PLOS One but requires significant improvements before further consideration. In short, the authors propose to review any peer reviewed article (written in English or Spanish) examining at least one force plate outcome among sport and tactical athletes that may be related to injury onset (risk of injury) or physical recovery (injury rehabilitation) by including prospective and retrospective cohort (including randomized and non-randomized), cross-sectional, and case-control studies. Because of including a broad population (sport and tactical athletes) and potential outcomes (any force pate measurement outcome) associated with multiple contexts (Injury profiling and injury rehabilitation), there is considerable likelihood of a high number of irrelevant articles to fulfill the aim of this study. Additionally, just because both sport (recreational and competitive) and tactical athletes experience musculoskeletal injuries during training and/or fulfilling job duties, the authors need to improve their justification why force plate measurement applications can equally apply to both populations. Injury is also not clearly defined in the protocol, which would greatly affect the potential number of studies and refine the focus of the current protocol. As currently written, potential articles would include studies measuring proxy indicators of injury risk (e.g., knee valgus during squat) without measuring injury occurrence itself (for most cross-sectional studies). If the current protocol plans to conduct a scoping review of this breadth, then the Methods section should clarify these considerations. In summary, there is a need for a scoping review to aggregate the relevant literature examining force plate methodologies used for injury profiling and to inform injury recovery, but the protocol as currently written is too broad and needs further refinement to ensure that resultant articles clearly align with the study objectives. Title: The title is directional and clearly conveys the manuscript. No additional comment. Abstract The abstract is succinct and appropriately describes the study protocol. Introduction In the first paragraph of the Introduction, please provide examples of injury risk among tactical populations. Currently, the introduction pertains to athletes and U.S. army, can you provide examples for law enforcement, fire and rescue, paramedics, or EMTs? Since tactical populations are also a focal point of the scoping review, the rationale to support the need for these populations would be beneficial. Line 76-78: Please provide a citation for each of the potential outcomes that have been developed from force plates, including “an athlete’s force production characteristics (CITE), maximal strength (CITE), balance (CITE), running (CITE), and jumping and landing forces (CITE). Methods 2.1.1. Please clarify if indicators or markers of injury predisposition will be included (I assume the author team does not intend to include these studies). This can present many studies that screened healthy athletes that underwent force plate measurement that was not included with any injury. 2.1.1. Line 150: Will all participants derive from organized sporting groups, and not include recreational athletes? In line 50, ‘level of performance’ implies competitive levels (e.g., high school vs college or amateur vs advanced) within a particular organized sport. I am not certain if recreational athletes are intended in the current review. If so, this may present a limitation due to varying injury exposure levels among recreational athletes compared to those actively participating in a competitive season. Can you please clarify and provide the rationale whether you will include these recreational athletes? For included articles, will data be extracted in duplicate, or will only 1 reviewer extract data and 2nd reviewer confirm that extracted information is correct? Given the anticipated breadth of articles that will apply to the search criteria with minimal exclusionary criteria, it would be important to identify if (or when) an update to the literature search will occur. Please clarify your planned approach to address either 1 or multiple literature searches. Line 203: I believe ‘any’ should be referred to ‘all’ eligibility criteria. Please review and correct if necessary. Line 209: Among the categories, 1) general study descriptors, 2) study population, 3) force plate assessment characteristics, only force place characteristics are further clarified (e.g., instructions, number of trials, rest between trials, etc.). Can you please describe the general study descriptors and study population? Line 221: Recommend rephrasing ‘where’ to ‘who’ when describing sport or tactical athletes. Reviewer #2: The following manuscript proposes a comprehensive scoping review on force plate testing methodology and their use for injury risk identification, prevention, and rehabilitation. There is a need for this review as force plate use as a means to assess athletes (sporting and tactical) has become very popular and extends beyond the laboratory now. Additionally, the proliferation of commercial force plate companies has resulted in the over saturation of information regarding their use making it difficult for the practitioners to navigate the optimal use strategies. I commend the authors for taking on this topic as I think it is much needed in the sports medicine field. However, I have several concerns regarding this proposed protocol. Firstly, the protocol appears to be a little too ambitious given the limited exclusion criteria. Including athletic and tactical populations and investigations of any study design will result in a large number of studies in the final report which is a lot to undertake for a single review. I would suggest delimiting to only athletics or tactical populations since there are valid arguments that these populations have very different mechanical exposures. Additionally, it is unclear why lower quality study designs would be included in this review. One of the current issues with this topic is the high number of cross-sectional studies that link a force plate assessment to injury prediction without direct evidence. Secondly, I was surprised to see no methods listed to discern publication quality, risk of bias, etc. There are many validated tools available to objectively appraise the literature being reviewed and would help identify the state of the science regarding force plates and musculoskeletal injuries (objective 3). Furthermore, this would help identify limitations and gaps in the science that need to be addressed with future work (objective 4). Would suggest reviewing some protocols published in the journal ‘systematic reviews’ and the standards for a Cochrane review to get ideas to create a more novel and rigorous protocol for this scoping review. Lastly, my biggest issue is it is not clear why this scoping review protocol should be published on its own separate from the actual scoping review itself. The introduction does a fine job justifying the need for this scoping review (which I agree a review on this topic is needed). However, from what is presented in the manuscript, this protocol is not using any novel methods to appraise the literature nor is it the most thorough protocol I’ve seen. The questions being asked are large in scope, but it is missing key rigors of objectivity that would set it apart (e.g., study quality assessment, risk of bias tools, etc). If there is a valid reason for the publishing of the protocol on its own, then it has not been adequately conveyed (this case needs to be made in the introduction). Comments for specific sections below. Abstract: Line 33: Change ‘systematic review’ to just ‘review’ since you go on to propose a scoping review. Line 50: Remove ‘systematic review’ from keywords since this is technically not a systematic review Introduction: While I think the rationale for why a scoping review is necessary is acceptable, the introduction provides no strong rationale as to why the literature needs a manuscript describing the methods of a proposed scoping review. What necessitates the need for knowing the methodological rigor (which would be described in the methods section of the scoping review anyways)? What is novel about your methodological approach to the scoping review? What gaps or limitations in the literature are these novel methods addressing? These are the types of questions that need to be addressed/discussed in the introduction for a protocol paper. Specific comments below: Line 72: phrase ‘allow sport and exercise science and medicine professionals’ is clunky, rephrase to improve readability. Lines 78-90: Most of the information is redundant. Only need to discuss the low cost and accessibility of force plates one time. Lines 108-116: This paragraph is somewhat misleading as it implies that a scoping review was performed, not the proposal of a methodological framework for a potential scoping review. Aim/Objectives: These are very ambitious and will result in a very large number of papers for the final analysis (even after screening papers out) Methodology: 2.1.1 Participants: Why no age or level of performance exclusion criteria? You are including both sport and tactical populations, but excluding paralympic athletes due to ‘different injury profiles and demands of sports for this populations’; does that mean you consider injury profiles of traditional athletes and tactical athletes analogous? Do you think injury profiles, exposure and sports demands are similar between adolescent recreational athletes (e.g., high school varsity basketball) and even division I collegiate basketball players? 2.1.2 Concept: Line 158: are you only considering primary injuries or secondary musculoskeletal injuries as well such as osteoarthritis? 2.2 Sources: This is a very broad range of studies to include which will drastically increase the number of manuscripts you will be reviewing. Do you believe that quasi-experimental, case-control, and cross-sectional studies will provide valid evidence for a force plate and its associated test’s prognostic capability? I would argue it would not and will further muddy interpretations interfering with the objective to provide a use guide for practitioners. 2.3 Search strategy: If going to include tactical athlete populations would suggest searching DTIC as well since much of their work won’t be published in journals indexed in Medline. Between what years is the search being conducted? Line 199-201: Need to have a specific statements or questions for both levels of screening that is reported to show how you identified if study was included or excluded. Would suggest using at minimum three levels (i.e., title only screening, abstract and full text). Discussion: Line 233-236: This is true that it will increase transparency, but all this information would be presented in the actual review as well. Line 236: Only two individuals screening for a review this size might take a long time, especially during the stages of data extraction. Line 240: I wouldn’t consider only reviewing peer-reviewed literature as a weakness for this review since there is also a lot of misinformation on force plate injury screening protocols (especially from commercial sector just trying to sell their force plate and software platform). ********** 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 Reviewer #2: No ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 1 |
Force plate methodologies applied to the injury profiling and rehabilitation in sport: a scoping review protocol PONE-D-23-07414R1 Dear Dr. McMahon, 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, Chris Connaboy Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Does the manuscript provide a valid rationale for the proposed study, with clearly identified and justified research questions? The research question outlined is expected to address a valid academic problem or topic and contribute to the base of knowledge in the field. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 2. Is the protocol technically sound and planned in a manner that will lead to a meaningful outcome and allow testing the stated hypotheses? The manuscript should describe the methods in sufficient detail to prevent undisclosed flexibility in the experimental procedure or analysis pipeline, including sufficient outcome-neutral conditions (e.g. necessary controls, absence of floor or ceiling effects) to test the proposed hypotheses and a statistical power analysis where applicable. As there may be aspects of the methodology and analysis which can only be refined once the work is undertaken, authors should outline potential assumptions and explicitly describe what aspects of the proposed analyses, if any, are exploratory. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Is the methodology feasible and described in sufficient detail to allow the work to be replicable? Descriptions of methods and materials in the protocol should be reported in sufficient detail for another researcher to reproduce all experiments and analyses. The protocol should describe the appropriate controls, sample size calculations, and replication needed to ensure that the data are robust and reproducible. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors described where all data underlying the findings will be made available when the study is complete? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception, at the time of publication. 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 Reviewer #2: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above and, if applicable, provide comments about issues authors must address before this protocol can be accepted for publication. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about research or publication ethics. You may also provide optional suggestions and comments to authors that they might find helpful in planning their study. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors have done a commendable job of addressing my concerns and the revised manuscript is much improved. I do not have further suggestions and believe it is ready for publication. Best of luck with the review. Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed all my concerns and made substantial changes to improve the quality of the manuscript. ********** 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 Reviewer #2: No ********** |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-23-07414R1 Force plate methodologies applied to injury profiling and rehabilitation in sport: a scoping review protocol Dear Dr. McMahon: 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. Chris Connaboy Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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