Title: The effect of mindfulness-based nursing support on the psychosocial status of women
receiving infertility treatment: a randomized controlled trial
Version: 4 Date: 03 Sep 2024
Reviewer's report:
Thank you authors for the significant revisions done to help improve the strength and clarity
of this manuscript. I have some additional items, mostly related to the revisions that need to be
clarified and/or revised.
Abstract:
1. Please include the IVF acronym after the first mention of in vitro fertilization in the Methods.
Materials and Methods:
2. Please correct the title of the first subsection from Ethical approval and constant to Ethical
approval and consent to participate.
3. Please add the word “prior” to the second bullet under the exclusion criteria (Cancelled PRIOR
to embryo transfer).
4. Please remove the “(Give reasons)” in the two Lost to Follow-up boxes in the CONSORT
flow diagram.
5. Table 1: Was the Mindfulness Meditation title in the final row meant to be left in Turkish?
If so, I would also include a simple translation.
Interventions in the experimental and control groups and data collection
6. Pages 13-16 need to be reorganized so that all of the control procedures are together and all
of the experimental procedures are together. As it is, the authors bounce back and forth making
it difficult to follow.
7. The second paragraph (beginning with During the process.. can be removed. This paragraph
contains redundant information already discussed in the recruitment section.
8. The second sentence of the last paragraph on 13 can also be shortened by removing “for
women reached via social media, and from the infertility nurse for women from the clinics.”
Again, this is redundant information.
9. Page 14, first paragraph, last sentence, beginning with “According to the sample selection
criteria…”. This sentence can also be removed as it has already been noted that 34 women (17
in each group) were included
10. For individuals in the experimental group that met via Zoom with other participants to
receive the training, how was participant privacy and anonymity protected? Were they allowed
to remove their video and their name from the screen if they did not want others to know they
were participating?
11. Page 15: Authors state, “Participants who completed the training were asked to regularly
listen to mindfulness audio recordings.” This should be clearer. For example, “Participants who
completed the training were asked to listen to mindfulness audio recordings at least twice every
day or more as needed.”
12. Page 15: Authors state that a Mobile Application Evaluation form was completed by
participants. When was this completed, what were they asked about, and what were the results
of the evaluation?
13. Page 15, second to last paragraph, beginning with “In the control group, after filling out
the “Personal Information Form,” a 30-minute face-to-face training session was conducted on
“mindfulness and mobile application.” This paragraph can be deleted. Not only is this redundant
information from page 13, but I don’t think it is correct as the control group would not have
been trained on the mindfulness application.
14. Page 16, first paragraph beginning with the sentence, “For patients in the experimental
group, a cognitive awareness session was conducted online to teach mindfulness practice, and
the mobile application was installed on their phones” and ending with the end of the paragraph…
This should all be with the experimental group procedures rather than bouncing back and forth
between the control and experimental groups.
Results:
15. You do not need to list out the title and acronym for the MAAS test again in the results. This
acronym has already been defined.
16. Thank you for including the effect sizes and the within/between group analyses. However,
the information presented is very redundant in certain areas and should be consolidated. I
have included an attachment of the revised manuscript with my comments to make it easier to
understand.