The Effect of Recreation in a Snow-Covered Forest Environment on the Psychological Wellbeing of Young Adults: Randomized Controlled Study
and Donald L. Grebner 7
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
It is an interesting research paper.
But, survey design has some basic problem.
Survey compared with standing on the road and standing in the woods. These physical spatial difference might make participants' bodily sensation basically different. On the side walk road, space was open space, but in the wood, the space was surrounding by trees. This physical condition might also made preventing wind effect.
And one more.
The paper's title was "snow- covered forest". But the road condition was not covered by the snow. This condition was optically different.
Please reconsider above two problems!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer #1:
We thank you for your insightful review.
We have revised the manuscript based on your comments.
Reviewer #1:
It is an interesting research paper.
But, survey design has some basic problem (...) Please reconsider above two problems!
1) Survey compared with standing on the road and standing in the woods. These physical spatial difference might make participants' bodily sensation basically different. On the side walk road, space was open space, but in the wood, the space was surrounding by trees. This physical condition might also made preventing wind effect.
Replay:
We decided that this point of view should be included in the new sub-chapter "limitations". Thank you to the reviewer for raising this issue.
The following issue has been added to the manuscript:
It is worth noting that the physical sensations may have been different in the urban environment than in the forest environment. We didnot measure these feelings in this experiment. It would be useful in furtherstudies to include measurement of physical sensations and possibly control the positioning of experimental fields to eliminate differences between environments. It is worth adding, however, that the day of the experiment was chosen so that the wind intensity was as low as possible and the differences between the environments as little as possible.
2) And one more. The paper's title was "snow- covered forest". But the road condition was not covered by the snow. This condition was optically different.
Replay:
In the experiment, there was actually less snow in the urban environment, but it was noticeable in the landscape (the picture, however, does not reflect it fully). However, in the experiment it was important to check whether the forest landscape with snow actually affects psychological relaxation - research confirms that this is the case.
We add an issue in the chapter "Materials and methods":
In the urban environment there was less snow in the landscape than in the forest environment.
We add an issue to the manuscript in the "Limitations" chapter:
In the experiment, there was less snow in the urban environment, but it was noticeable in this landscape. In the experiment, it was important to check whether the forest landscape with snow actually affects psychological relaxation - research confirms that this is the case. The intensity of snow occurrence in the urban landscape (in the control environment) is less important.
The authors are grateful to the reviewer for these helpful comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is interesting and falls within the scope of the journal. Results are clearly displayed and critically discussed in a proper way. Overall, English is adequately understandable throughout the entire manuscript.
However, in my opinion, a few issues need to be considered, as reported below.
Let's consider eligibility criteria of study subjects. It is not completely clear to me whether participants were all healthy and if subjects taking medicines or suffering from any disease were excluded from the study. Moreover, it would be recommended, if possible, to report whether studied subjects were allowed (or not) to smoke or drink coffee early in the morning before the start of the trial, and if they were allowed (or not) to bring their mobile phone with themselves and use it during the walk. These ones would be all important details to mention because they could introduce (if present) potential confounding factors in obtained results, thus leading to an under- or an over-estimation of the real effects of forest bathing in the light of their direct influence on subjective stress levels.
I would suggest to concisely specify, in the Title as well as in the Abstract, the study type/design (Randomized Controlled Study).
I would recommend to specify the method of randomization that was used to assign participants to each group.
Considering the relatively limited number of study participants (32) and that parametric tests were selected to analyze data, I would recommend the authors to report whether they preliminary checked (with a proper normality test) if their data-set could be well-modeled by a normal distribution, thus later justifying the use of parametric tests.
I agree with the authors that a relevant part of the positive effect of a forest environment on human health is due to its visual impact. However, I would recommend the authors to also consider briefly discussing the potential influence of tree phytoncides on individual relaxation. You might be interested in taking a look at the following research on the topic: Nam ES, Uhm DC (2008) Effects of phytoncides inhalation on serum cortisol level and life stress of college students. Korean J Adult Nurs. 20(5):697–706.
Line 229: in the “Results” section, I would suggest to only describe results without making any explanatory attempt. Therefore, I would recommend to move this sentence into the “Discussion” section of the article.
Lines 352-400: I would recommend the authors to consider, if they agree, to move the “Limitations” paragraph in the last part of the “Discussion” section of the article in order to keep conclusions as short as possible for better readability.
Lines 241, 281…: although the language is generally fine, I would recommend to check the article for minor language mistakes.
In conclusion, I hope that my revision could be useful for the authors to improve their interesting and valuable article.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer #2:
We thank you for your insightful review.
We have revised the manuscript based on your comments
Reviewer #2
1) The topic is interesting and falls within the scope of the journal. Results are clearly displayed and critically discussed in a proper way. Overall, English is adequately understandable throughout the entire manuscript.
However, in my opinion, a few issues need to be considered, as reported below.
Let's consider eligibility criteria of study subjects. It is not completely clear to me whether participants were all healthy and if subjects taking medicines or suffering from any disease were excluded from the study. Moreover, it would be recommended, if possible, to report whether studied subjects were allowed (or not) to smoke or drink coffee early in the morning before the start of the trial, and if they were allowed (or not) to bring their mobile phone with themselves and use it during the walk. These ones would be all important details to mention because they could introduce (if present) potential confounding factors in obtained results, thus leading to an under- or an over-estimation of the real effects of forest bathing in the light of their direct influence on subjective stress levels.
Replay:
The study examined the impact of the forest environment on psychological relaxation rather than stress. People participating in the study were healthy and fit. Subjects could not be under the influence of medicines(including alcohol) during the examination. Before and directly during the study, smoking and coffee consumption as well as the use of the cell phones wasprohibited.
In the manuscript text, in the chapter "Materials and methods" added the issue:
People participating in the study were healthy and fit. Subjects could not be under the influence of medicines(including alcohol) during the examination. Before the test and directly during it, smoking and coffee consumption as well as the use of cell phone wasprohibited. During the entire experiment the use of cell phones was prohibited.
2) I would suggest to concisely specify, in the Title as well as in the Abstract, the study type/design (Randomized Controlled Study).
Reply:
We added this sentence in the title and in the abstract.
3) I would recommend to specify the method of randomization that was used to assign participants to each group.
Simple randomization was used in research.
We have added the text in the chapter "Materials and methods":
The simple randomization method was used.
4) Considering the relatively limited number of study participants (32) and that parametric tests were selected to analyze data, I would recommend the authors to report whether they preliminary checked (with a proper normality test) if their data-set could be well-modeled by a normal distribution, thus later justifying the use of parametric tests.
Replay:
Yes, the data were tested for normality of distribution. The distribution was close to normal.
Texts have been added in the chapter "Materials and methods":
The distribution of data was similar to the normal distribution, this was checked by the Shapiro-Wilk test.
5) I agree with the authors that a relevant part of the positive effect of a forest environment on human health is due to its visual impact. However, I would recommend the authors to also consider briefly discussing the potential influence of tree phytoncides on individual relaxation. You might be interested in taking a look at the following research on the topic: Nam ES, Uhm DC (2008) Effects of phytoncides inhalation on serum cortisol level and life stress of college students. Korean J Adult Nurs. 20(5):697–706.
Replay:
The following sentence has been added to the text:
The impact of phytoncides from trees growing in the forest may also be significant and it is worth investigating in future studies. It is worth emphasizing that in winter this effect may not occur (lack of photosynthesis) compared to forest areas in spring and summer [44].
6) Line 229: in the “Results” section, I would suggest to only describe results without making any explanatory attempt. Therefore, I would recommend to move this sentence into the “Discussion” section of the article.
Replay:
This sentence has been removed from the "results" chapter.
7) Lines 352-400: I would recommend the authors to consider, if they agree, to move the “Limitations” paragraph in the last part of the “Discussion” section of the article in order to keep conclusions as short as possible for better readability.
Replay:
This paragraph has been extracted as "Limitations".
8) Lines 241, 281…: although the language is generally fine, I would recommend to check the article for minor language mistakes.
Replay:
The text has been checked for language errors.
9) In conclusion, I hope that my revision could be useful for the authors to improve their interesting and valuable article.
Replay:
The authors are grateful to the reviewer for these helpful comments.
