Review History


All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.

Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.

View examples of open peer review.

Summary

  • The initial submission of this article was received on September 16th, 2022 and was peer-reviewed by 3 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The Academic Editor made their initial decision on October 16th, 2022.
  • The first revision was submitted on November 17th, 2022 and was reviewed by 2 reviewers and the Academic Editor.
  • The article was Accepted by the Academic Editor on December 30th, 2022.

Version 0.2 (accepted)

· Dec 30, 2022 · Academic Editor

Accept

Dear Authors, Thank you for addressing the comments of the reviewers.

[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Jafri Abdullah, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]

Reviewer 2 ·

Basic reporting

Necessary amendments have been done as per previous review.

Quality of English has also been improved

Experimental design

No comment

Validity of the findings

No comment

Additional comments

Necessary improvements have been done as per reviewer suggestions

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

No comments

Experimental design

No comments

Validity of the findings

No comments

Additional comments

No comments

Version 0.1 (original submission)

· Oct 16, 2022 · Academic Editor

Major Revisions

Thank you for submitting your manuscript. This article has been reviewed by relevant experts from the field. They found the manuscript carries merits, but raised several concerns which should be addressed before considering the manuscript for publication. Please refer to their comments, more specifically on the presentation of results, methodology, and limitations of this study. Moreover, this manuscript needs your attention to improve scientific writing, grammar, syntax, and spelling. I would suggest to opt an editing service or consider assistance from a Native English Speaker.

The rationale or need of this study should be elaborated as it was conducted among university students and has limited generalizability in Spain.

[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]

[# PeerJ Staff Note: The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at copyediting@peerj.com for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title) #]

Reviewer 1 ·

Basic reporting

1. The authors should identify (COVID-19) abbreviations in text and tables.
2. The authors should add the references to the following information (A series of social distancing measures were taken to protect the health and safety of citizens, contain the progression of the disease, and strengthen the public health system. These measures include cancelling group events, closing schools and commercial activities, and restricting people’s mobility, among others).

Experimental design

3. The authors should clarify the knowledge gap in the introduction section.
4. Method section should be divided into multiple subsections as (Study Design, Study Setting, Sample Size Calculation, Ethical Considerations, Data Collection and Variables, and Statistical Plan).
5. The authors should mention the name of the statistical software that was used.
6. The authors should mention how to calculate the sample size and the type of sampling.

Validity of the findings

7. I recommend using other statistical analyses such as chi-square between gender and other categorical variables.

Reviewer 2 ·

Basic reporting

• The study was only confined to University campus of Spain, hence it cannot be generalized for whole country. Therefore, in the title, only “evidence from Spanish University campus” should be mentioned.
• Some part of the article is not clear and looks ambiguous. Standard of English is not up to the mark of Peer J standard. It is recommended to take the help of a professional who can write in clear, unambiguous and profession English.
• Introduction and background need to show more context for justification of this study
• Gaps in the literature were not explored

Experimental design

• Materials and Methods section is improperly structured
• Subsection “Data” in materials and methods is inappropriate
• No validated questionnaire was used in this survey. In addition questionnaire was not pre-tested either. Large number of incomplete responses indicates flaws in the questionnaire
• From line 93 to 99 is inappropriate for Methods section. It should be in discussion section
• From line 100 to 107 is inappropriate for methodology section. It should be in result section

Validity of the findings

• Conclusions are not well stated and lacks of any recommendations.
• Limitations of the study were not discussed properly

Additional comments

This paper needs significant improvement in every section, hence is not appropriate for the publication in Peer J at this moment

Reviewer 3 ·

Basic reporting

This study aims at understanding what motivates behaviours and compliance with social distancing measures among students and workers from a Spanish public university. Their findings reveals that being very concerned about getting ill suggests higher risk of not maintaining social relation with non-cohabiting people. In addition, getting older increase the probability of not leaving home except for emergencies as happens with those who are very concerned about getting ill. Young people often living with vulnerable older relatives may affect studentsí behaviour. The study is interesting but has several limitations.

Experimental design

Methods:
Explain the study design both in the abstract and in the methods section
It is necessary to describe all the details of the model so that the authors can understand the origin of their findings.
The model needs to be explained in more detail.
The authors do not explain the CI if it is at 95%, nor do they describe the p-value.

Validity of the findings

Findings
The model is interesting, but it is necessary to explain the adjustment variables to test the established associations.
On the other hand, in order to test these models, it is necessary to evaluate the sensitivity of the model.

Discussion
The discussion is very general.
Authors should include a paragraph explaining the public health implications of their findings.
The authors do not describe or discuss the limitations of their study, including their empirical model.

Additional comments

Include the design in the title

All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.