Review Reports - Elite Sport and Sustainable Psychological Well-Being

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is very interesting. It investigate a few studied topic, the top athlete personality.

It could be of help to improve the referenced bibliography in the introduction (e.g. add more references) albeit there are few literature on the topic, some other papers can be found in other categories similar to athletes (e.g. military).

Also, i suggested to add in the results a further analysis, dividing the sample in individual and team sport (as well as females and males team and individual athletes) even if the sample will significantly reduce, and treat the data with the appropriate non parametric statistics. Also an analysis of the athlete ages must be done. About eating questionnaire, the results shold be further divided between sports who require weight control and other sport.

A very important point are the suicidal behaviour of athletes. Please check the literature for familiarity and also for post-career suicidal behaviors.

Last but not least, english must be improved all along the paper.

I think these changes will take the paper to an upper level.

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and very helpful comments and suggestions. We have followed your recommendations, as you can see in the corrected article and in our comments below.

“Improve the referenced bibliography”

As suggested, we have improved the referenced bibliography in the Introduction (l.37, 59, 65, 66, 71, 75, 90, 95, 112 - 115, 123, 123).

“…further analysis, dividing the sample in individual and team sport.”

We have already done this in the original article. There were no differences between the groups, which we included in the results and interpretation (l. 434, 435, 1121 - 1125);

“…dividing females and males team and individual athletes and further division between sports who require weight control and other sport.”

Both of these comparisons would be very useful, but we decided to save them for later studies. The analyses in the article are already extensive and adding further analysis might obscure the point of the article. We hope you can agree with us on this issue.

“Also an analysis of the athlete ages must be done.”

We have done an analysis of the age of the athletes (lines 211 - 213).

“A very important point are the suicidal behaviour of athletes.”

Thank you for understanding the importance of this topic. Additional literature was included (l. 112, 114, 115, 123, 124). We have done an analysis of the age of the athletes (l. 211 - 213)

“Last but not least, english must be improved all along the paper.«

The English has been improved, the whole paper has been reviewed by a native speaker and we believe it is much easier to read now, thank you for your suggestion.

Thanks again for your kind comments, hopefully they will be enough for the higher level of this paper and your acceptance for publication.

Kind regards,

Maribor, 31. 1. 2022

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is well written. However, research is conducted in Slovenia and presumably the authors are not native English speakers, the quality of the English language is not sufficient. My first impression is that the paper needs a thorough proofreading and copyediting. I recommend the authors to have their manuscript reviewed by a native English language speaker.

I have few suggestions that I hope the authors find useful.

Title - Precise title. Maybe a little bit too long.

Introduction:

Use past tense when discussing the procedure and results as well as other researchers' procedures and results.

The method is appropriate, and the conclusions are consistent with the evidence and arguments presented. Moreover, the author addresses the central questions posed.

Statistics: The authors should add a separate statistics section. The statistical analyses that were described in the results should be removed and added to the statistics section. The author should give information about what statistics program (e.g. SPSS) was used and whether the statistical requirements for the specific tests were fulfilled (normal distribution etc.).

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and very helpful comments and suggestions. We have followed your recommendations, as you can see in the corrected article and in our comments below.

Paper needs a thorough proofreading and copyediting. I recommend the authors to have their manuscript reviewed by a native English language speaker.

The English has been improved, the whole paper has been reviewed by a native speaker and we believe it is much easier to read now, thank you for your suggestion.

Title - Precise title. Maybe a little bit too long.

We changed the title to "Elite sport and sustainable psychological well-being".

Introduction:Use past tense when discussing the procedure and results as well as other researchers' procedures and results.

We have corrected as you suggested (l. 229, 230, 224, 302, 305, 306, 308, 312).

Statistics: The authors should add a separate statistics section. The statistical analyses that were described in the results should be removed and added to the statistics section.

We have included some new results in the article, as requested by some other reviewers. To avoid too many tables, we have moved some of them to the appendix, and we hope this is satisfactory for you.

The author should give information about what statistics program (e.g. SPSS) was used and whether the statistical requirements for the specific tests were fulfilled (normal distribution etc.).

We have added information about the statistical program used (251, 252).

We also added important information about the distributions. We have modified and added to the analyzes to better meet the statistical requirements (Results section).

Thank you again for your kind comments, which we hope will be sufficient for a higher level of this paper and your acceptance for publication.

Kind regards,

Maribor, 31. 1. 2022

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1 “trigger”, which is a proximal factor, seems to be not suitable in the title. “Risk” might be better.

2 The aims in the title are different from the title and the content.

3 In the abstract, the authors should briefly introduce the case and control group.

4 The sentence “Sport does not appear to be a protective factor for psychopathology in sport and there is strong need to establish to assure sustainable psychological well-being of athletes” is not readable and should be improved.

5 Some sentences should be along with references, such as the first sentence in the introduction.

6 The language should be improved and is not easy to understand somewhere.

7 The authors included suicide risk and substance use into the definition of mental disorders, that is not suitable. For example, the persons with suicide risk may not have mental disorders.

8 Please detailly describe the criteria of matching between elite athletes and non-athletes.

9 The Slovenian translation has good internal reliability and stability over time, with median of alpha coefficients for all scales of 0.79. Using which database to prove that?

10 statistical analyses should be detailly described. For example, do all variables conform to normal distribution?

11 The authors did not use multivariate regression to analyze the associations and the differences. In that case, how do you control the confounding bias?

12 What is the mean of T value?

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and very helpful comments and suggestions. We followed your recommendations as shown in corrected article and in our comments below.

1… “trigger”, which is a proximal factor, seems to be not suitable in the title, “risk” might be better.

We have changed the title, the word trigger is no longer included (l. 2).

2. The aims in the title are different from the title and the content.

We have changed the title to suit the content better.

3. In the abstract, the authors should briefly introduce the case and control

We have added some information in the abstract (l. 15, 16).

4. The sentence “Sport does not appear to be a protective factor for psychopathology in sport and there is strong need to establish to assure sustainable psychological well-being of athletes” is not readable and should be improved.

We deleted the sentence as this has not changed the context or content of the paper.

5 Some sentences should be along with references, such as the first sentence in the introduction.

The references were added (l. 30, 59, 71, 92, 140, 172, 176).

The language should be improved and is not easy to understand somewhere.

The language was corrected by a native speaker and I hope you will like the changes.

7. The authors included suicide risk and substance use into the definition of mental disorders, that is not suitable. For example, the persons with suicide risk may not have mental disorders.

True, suicide is not just psychiatric diagnosis. But it is included in DSM V as a disorder for further consideration and potential acceptance into the diagnostic system and it is also already conceptualized in DSM V primarly as s simptom of depression and/or borderline personality disorder.

The DSM V recognizes substance-related disorders as disorder, resulting from the use of ten separate classes of drugs: alcohol; caffeine; cannabis; etc...

8. Please detailly describe the criteria of matching between elite athletes and non-athletes.

Added in Participants section (216 - 218).

9. The Slovenian translation has good internal reliability and stability over time, with median of alpha coefficients for all scales of 0.79. Using which database to prove that?

We used database used and described in Morey, L. C. Vprašalnik Za Oceno Osebnosti (PAI): Priročnik; Center za psihodiagnostična sredstva: Ljubljana, 2009. The reference was added in the paper (l. 232).

10. Statistical analyses should be detailly described. For example, do all variables conform to normal distribution?

Required statistical analyses were added and detailly described (Table 1).

The authors did not use multivariate regression to analyze the associations and the differences. In that case, how do you control the confounding bias?

The logistic regression was made. Hopefully the statistical analysis are now sufficient.

12 What is the mean of T value?

Mean is 50, SD is 10. But our results are compared to the Slovenian standardization sample.

Thank you again for your kind recommendations which will hopefully take the paper to an upper level.

Kind regards,

Maribor, 31. 1. 2022

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The topic is very interesting and important. It would be great if authors were more focused on the sustainable psychological well-being of the athelets. Methods section needs to be explained in more detailed. To reflect the title and objective of the study statistical analysis used in this version are not be sufficient. The reviewer is not a native English speaker but can notice several language issues in the manuscript.

Introduction: it has provided general overview of athletes and psychological well-being but sustainable psychological well-being has not been addressed. The terminology used in the introduction are different and most possibly mean the same thing for instance “athelets or risky and non-risky sports” “professional and non-professional athelets” “elite athelets” “high performance sport”.

Rationale of the study needs to be explained in detail

Hypothesis: “the personality profile of the athletes would differ significantly from that of the normative group” is not addressed properly.

Materials and methods

Study design: Somewhere in the results section it can be found that it is a case control study thus mention it in study. Please include it in the study design section too.

Participants: It is very difficult to follow this section. Who actually are the control group? How were the control group selected? What is the ratio of case control group? In which basis? non-athelets or normative, please make uniform.

Materials: PAI and eating disorder inventory: citation for validity and reliability in Slovenian translation is needed including values for validity and reliability.

Procedure: As there are 434 items in the questionnaire, how the authors collected data, how long did it take finish one set? How was the response bias assured?

Interpretation/scoring of the PAI and eating disorder inventory: Missing

Results

Table 1: t value should be in small letter

Table 3: If it is case control study, gender wise analysis should be explained according to case and control.

t-test only is not sufficient to explain protective and pathogenic effect. Thus, further analysis is suggested with regression which will change the discussion including conclusion of the study

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and very helpful comments and suggestions. We followed your recommendations as shown in corrected article and in our comments below.

Reviewer 4

The topic is very interesting and important. It would be great if authors were more focused on the sustainable psychological well-being of the athelets.

Introduction:it has provided general overview of athletes and psychological well-being but sustainable psychological well-being has not been addressed.

We briefly adrdressed sustainable psychological well-being and added same references (l. 24, 36, 37, 56 – 59).

The terminology used in the introduction are different and most possibly mean the same thing for instance “athelets or risky and non-risky sports” “professional and non-professional athelets” “elite athelets” “high performance sport”.

We had native speaker correct the article and we now consistently use terminology.

Rationale of the study needs to be explained in detail.

We adjusted the title, so that rationale of the study (which is addressed in l. 186 – l.201) fits better.

Hypothesis: “the personality profile of the athletes would differ significantly from that of the normative group” is not addressed properly.

We included additional analysis (logistic regression), so the hypothesis is now properly addressed.

Materials and methods

Study design:Somewhere in the results section it can be found that it is a case control study thus mention it in study. Please include it in the study design section too.

We better explained how we included the participants and the materials and methods section is now elaborated, we hope you will find it sufficient.

Participants:It is very difficult to follow this section. Who actually are the control group? How were the control group selected? What is the ratio of case control group? In which basis? non-athelets or normative, please make uniform.

The corrections have been made, so hopefully the section is easier to follow and these questions answered.

Materials:PAI and eating disorder inventory: citation for validity and reliability in Slovenian translation is needed including values for validity and reliability.

The references were added (l. 232, 240).

Procedure:As there are 434 items in the questionnaire, how the authors collected data, how long did it take finish one set? How was the response bias assured?

The subjects were tested individually; estimated time for finishing one set of questions was 60 to 90 minutes; response bias was controled with validity scales (PAI) and with indicators of desirable response (EDI).

Interpretation/scoring of the PAI and eating disorder inventory: Missing

We added some information (229 – 231).

Results; Table 1:t value should be in small letter

T values are not t-test values.

Results; Table 3:If it is case control study, gender wise analysis should be explained according to case and control.

We believe we now addressed the issue correctly.

t-test only is not sufficient to explain protective and pathogenic effect. Thus, further analysis is suggested with regression which will change the discussion including conclusion of the study.

The logistic regression was made. Hopefully the statistical analysis are now sufficient.

Thank you again for your kind recommendations which will hopefully take the paper to an upper level.

Kind regards,

Maribor, 31. 1. 2022

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

line 211; The scoring was performed via online application TESTresuj.

I not clear what is resuj.

212: The s proposed
in The Professional Manual [34] were used to interpret the data.

What is "s" ?

this is repeated in line 221.

437: higher risk of what ?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for careful reading of our corrected version of the article. We made corrections according to your comments, we hope you will be satisfied with them.

line 211; The scoring was performed via online application TESTresuj.

I not clear what is resuj.

Thank you for your question – the following sentence was added and TESTresuj was put in brackets, to signify that it is a name of an application.

»TESTresuj« is an application, used for online psychological tests, developed by Center za psihodiagnosticna sredstva, which is the main publisher for psychological tests in the country. (line 211).

212: The s proposed
in The Professional Manual [34] were used to interpret the data.

What is "s" ?

this is repeated in line 221.

This is a typing error, instead of s it should say »strategies« - this was corrected. Thank you for noticing.

In line 221 it is written »strategies«, and we hope this procedure is now clearly written.

437: higher risk of what ?

We concluded the sentence saying that the athletes are at higher risk for developing problems with mental health (line 439).

This sentence now sounds much better, thank you for your comments.

We also had additional proof-reading by a native English speaker, we hope the language is now understandable and clear.

Thank you again for your comments, we sincerely hope you will be satisfied with them.

Maribor, 14. 2. 2022

Reviewer 3 Report

The table 3 with logistic regression model should report OR and 95%CI.
The part of statistical analysis should be a single paragraph and should be detailly described.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for careful reading of our corrected version of the article. We made corrections according to your comments, we hope you will be satisfied with them.

The table 3 with logistic regression model should report OR and 95%CI.

This data is already in table with logistics regression, markes as Exp(B) – This is the exponentiation of the B coefficient, which is an odds ratio. This value is given by default because odds ratios can be easier to interpret than the coefficient, which is in log-odds units. When Exp(B) is less than 1, increasing values of the variable correspond to decreasing odds of the event's occurrence. When Exp(B) is greater than 1, increasing values of the variable correspond to increasing odds of the event's occurrence. Constant is not interpretable in logistic regression.

The part of statistical analysis should be a single paragraph and should be detailly described.

We rewrote this part thoroughly, we believe it is now much clearer and we hope you will find it contains all the necessary information.

We also had additional proof-reading by a native English speaker, we hope the language is now understandable and clear.

Thank you again for your comments, we sincerely hope you will be satisfied with them.

Maribor, 14. 2. 2022

Reviewer 4 Report

Other queries have been addressed appropriately.

Minor corrections

(1) Table 1: T values. It is clear that it is not t-test value but what does this T value stands for? It needs to mention in foot notes.

(2) Mention sample size in each table

Author Response

Dear reviewer, thank you for careful reading of our corrected version of the article. We made corrections according to your comments, we hope you will be satisfied with them.

Table 1: T values. It is clear that it is not t-test value but what does this T value stands for? It needs to mention in foot notes.

A detailed description of what T value stands for was added in the footnote of Table 1.

(2) Mention sample size in each table

Sample size columns were added into Tables 1,2 and 3.

We also had additional proof-reading by a native English speaker, we hope the language is now understandable and clear.

Thank you again for your comments, we sincerely hope you will be satisfied with them.

Maribor, 14. 2. 2022