Title: Psychological well-being and Death anxiety among Breast Cancer Survivors during the
Covid-19 Pandemic: The mediating role of self-compassion
Version: 2 Date: 02 Jun 2021
Reviewer's report:
-Abstract, rephrase sentence 1 from “few research…have been published” to “little research has
been published”
-Abstract, method, instead of “data was” change to “data were”
-Abstract, method, last sentence, change “significance on” to “significance of”
-Abstract, conclusion, change “as one of treatment strategies” to “as one treatment strategy”
-Abstract, conclusion, removed “are discussed” from the sentence
-[main manuscript], Introduction, sentence 4, add “the” before “current pandemic”
-Introduction, paragraph 2, sentence 5, change “her or his” to “their” for conciseness and
inclusivity
-Introduction, paragraph 3, sentence 5, change “Oncology” to “oncology”
-Introduction, present research, sentence 2, consider changing “to stick” with “to understand” [to
stick is more informal and does not flow as well]
-Introduction, present research, sentence 3, change “research was to” to research is to”
-Introduction, present research, sentence 3, add “the” before “COVID-19 pandemic”
-Title, consider add “the” before “COVID-19 pandemic”
-Participants, sentence 2, there are two periods written after
-Participants, sentence 3, “Participants had mean age of and ranging between 18 and 65” the
mean age is missing from the sentence.
-Participants, sentence 4, “During this time, Among” should be “During this time, among…”
-Participants, sentence 5, add space to read “sample size (30)”
-Participants, “to determine the hypothesis is true” add “whether” before “the” [Another note:
hypothesis are never considered true, they are simply considered not disproven; thus this
phrasing should be corrected. For hypotheses, one either rejects or fails to reject, but never
accepts that it is true.]
-Table 1, subheadings such as “age,” “education,” “marital statue” [which should be status], and
“type of therapy” should be bolded for better readability
-Table 1, end parentheses is missing for the 18-30 group
-Table 1, “Master& higher” should be “Master’s & higher”
-Table 1, “Associate Degree” and “Bachelor” should be “Associate’s Degree” and “Bachelor’s
Degree”
-Table 1, “Under Diploma” should be “less than Diploma”
-Table 1, in addition it should be made clear what “Diploma” is in reference to (i.e., high school/
k-12), since the other degrees listed are also versions of diplomas
-Table 1, a space should be added before the + for “Mastectomy+ chemotherapy”
-Table 1, in the “demographic collection sheet” section it lists that “divorcee” was a marital status
listed, yet it is not listed in the Table—were there no participants that selected this category?
-Procedure, last sentence, add “had the” before “right”
-Instruments, both “Templer’s” and “Tempter’s” is listed—the correct spelling should be noted
-Instruments, Templer’s, change “The subject” to “The subjects”
-Instruments, Templer’s, change “score” to “scores” and “ranges” to “range”
-For the DAS and example item is needed in the measure description
-Self-compassion, sentence 1, a space is needed before (34)
-Statistical analysis, sentence 2, remove “important variables of interest” as it is subjective and
not necessary to include
-Statistical analysis, sentence 5, change “path analysis” to “path analyses” since more than one
was run
-Statistical analysis, add a space between 0 and (35)
-Statistical analysis, remove leading zero for “0.05” to be “.05”
-When referencing p-values the p should be lower case and in italics (e.g., p < .05). In addition,
spaces should be present on either side of inequality or equal signs (=, >, >).
-For correlation, “r” should also be in italics.
-Results, sentence 1, change “analysis” to “analyses” and “relationship” to “relationships”
-Results, sentence 3, add “the” before “study”
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 2, “In model” should be “In the model”
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 2, “were gone in” should be “were put in”
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 3, “One mediation analyses conducted” should be “One
mediation analysis was conducted”
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 3, “considers for…” should be “should be considered as a
mediator…”
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 4, “F” should be in italics, a space should be before “206” and
spaces are needed on either side of the < sign
-Results, when citing confidence intervals in-text they should be written as 95% CI [-.0083,
-.1654]
-Results, paragraph 2, sentence 6, add “the” before “bootstrapped confidence interval”
-Table 3, “se” should be “SE” and in italics
-Results, “In predicted model, psychological well-being” should be “In the predicted model…”
-Results, “The result of model” should be “The results of the model indicate…”
-Discussion, sentence 2, change “fewer” to “less”
-Discussion, sentence 4, change “Self-compassion” with “self-compassion”
-Discussion, sentence 5, add a comma after “In another study,”
-Discussion, sentence 6, change “his or her” to their”
-Discussion, sentence 9, remove period before (42)
-Discussion, sentence 10, remove “massive” and if desired it could be changed to “large”
-Discussion, sentence 10, remove “both”
-Discussion, sentence 10, change “Dass-21” to “DASS-21”
-Discussion, last sentence, change “During” to “during”
-Discussion, consider breaking this single paragraph into two for better readability. By having
one large paragraph, the points being made gets lost due to the amount of information being
presented in one chunk, breaking it up into smaller sections can strengthen this delivery.
-Conclusion, sentence 2, change “to statistically mediate” to “statistically mediates”
-Conclusion, sentence 4, change “epidemic” to “pandemic”
-Limitations, “Cross-sectional” should be “cross-sectional”
-Limitations, add a space before (52)
-Limitations, add “the” before “Zanjan Province”
-Limitations, sentence 5, “This research” should be “this research”
-Clinical and research implications, “Coronavirus contagion” should be “coronavirus contagion”
-Clinical and research implications, sentence 2, “During” should be “during”
-Clinical and research implications, sentence 3, “Self-compassion” should be “self-compassion”
-Clinical and research implications, sentence 4, “As a matter of fact” should be removed the
transition of “Moreover,” may be more suitable if a transition phrasing is desired, but is not
necessary to include