Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Psychosocial, emotional and professional challenges faced by female healthcare
professionals during the COVID-19 outbreak in Lahore, Pakistan: A qualitative study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
05 Dec 2020
Reviewer's report:
Please include all comments for the authors in this box rather than uploading your report
as an attachment. Please only upload as attachments annotated versions of manuscripts,
graphs, supporting materials or other aspects of your report which cannot be included in a
text format.
Please, I suggest you to include more literature and references about the challenges in
healthcare setting given by COVID-19 and implications for occupational health
surveillance and risk management services. You should define psychosocial risks in
occupational setting. Firstly, pyshosocial risk factors are not limited to work-related stress
(cite: Chirico F. The assessment of psychosocial risk: only "work-related stress" or
something else? Med Lav. 2015 Jan 9;106(1):65-6), but they include new and emerging
psychosocial risk factors, such as the combined exposure to physical and psychosocial
risks, job insecurity, work intensification and high demands at work, high emotional load
related to burnout, work-life balance problems, and violence and harassment at work (cite:
Chirico F. Burnout and depression are not the same thing. Br J Psych. 2017
Oct,2;190(1):e-letter. Available from: <a
href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/190/">http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/190/</a>1/81.2.e-
letters#burnout-syndrome-and-depression-are-not-the-same-thing.
Chirico F. Is burnout a syndrome or an occupational disease? Instructions for occupational
physicians. Epidemiol Prev. 2017 Sep;41(5-6):294-298. Doi: 10.19191/EP17.5-
6.P294.089. Chirico F. The forgotten realm of the new and emerging psychosocial risk
factors. J Occup Health. 2017;59(5):433-435. Doi: 10.1539/joh.17-0111-OP. Magnavita
N, Di Stasio E, Capitanelli I, Lops EA, Chirico F, Garbarino S. Sleep Problems and
Workplace Violence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Front Neurosci.
2019;13:997. Published 2019 Oct 1. doi:10.3389/fnins.2019.00997). Occupational health
surveillance and workplace health promotion are crucial to address psycosocial risks in
general and in this time of pandemic particularly (cite: Chirico F, Nucera G, Magnavita N.
Protecting the mental health of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 emergency. BJ
Psych International. 2020. 1-6. 
Doi: 10.1192/bji.2020.39. Chirico F, Magnavita N. The
Crucial Role of Occupational Health Surveillance for Health-care Workers During the
COVID-19 Pandemic. Workplace Health Saf. 2020 Sep 22:2165079920950161. doi:
10.1177/2165079920950161. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 32961069.Chirico F, Nucera G.
An Italian Experience of Spirituality from the Coronavirus Pandemic. J Relig Health.
2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01036-1.)
Thank you,
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this review
directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would like to take
advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below. Your name, email
address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal, and date of your review
submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted to Publons after the final
decision on the manuscript has been made. If you have already registered at Publons, they
will notify you of the receipt of this review and update your profile 
as per your settings
and their policy. If you are not registered with Publons, you will receive an email from
them asking you to register in order for them to be able to recognize your review on your
new profile page. Publons may use the Review Data to generate derivative metadata for
the benefit of Publons and you as a reviewer, carefully considering the sensitivity of such
information. For example, Publons may verify your record as a reviewer by updating your
profile published on its webservice if you have registered for such service or help editors
to identify candidate reviewers. Please find the details of processing in Publons’ privacy
policy 
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing interests,
considering the following questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary
from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially from the
publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way gain or
lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization
that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing interests'
below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I have no competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available under an
Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for publication.
Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published report have been
included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not be published.
If you are not
happy for us to publish this report, please contact the editorial office before completing
the review.
If you wish, you can include your name in your published report. Please note
you must decide whether to include your name at the start of the process and confirm this
decision whenever prompted. If you change your decision later, we will not be able to
publish your name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please 
do not
 publish my name with my
report. (default)
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use of
appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free from
apparent manipulation?
Yes