Forest Therapy as an Alternative and Sustainable Rehabilitation Practice: A Patient Group Attitude Investigation

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript ID: sustainability-3124159

This is a qualitative study on awareness about forest therapy as a green prescription for patients with stable chronic disease.

I cannot recommend the publication of this article in its current form. A major revision is needed prior to publication.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria in studies should be added.

A section on sample size should be added (is the sample size representative of the target population). Also, was the sampling random?

A section on statistical analysis should be added.

For the questionnaire is that it is already tested and validated before, for sections 2-5 (Items), it is necessary to indicate the method used to calculate the score and the analysis of the score obtained.

The conclusion part should be reworked, please discuss in depth in conjunction with the revised content again.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Bassi et al. proposed an interesting study to evaluate the interest of people in a region of Italy, with some kind of disease, in performing forest therapy (FT), which may show a potential in alternative therapy methods. The paper has a scientific contribution in the area and is within the scope of the journal. However, I have a few concerns that I consider that the paper should not be published in its current version.

Major concerns

1.    The first is that the contribution of the article is not understandable. In the introduction the objective of the study is clear, but it does not state how the results of the authors generate a contribution to the current literature and to the readers of sustainability.
2.    The discussion section should be elaborated a bit more. For instance, there are certain statements that could be supported by other studies in the literature or could even be compared to other works in the state of the art. For example, a reason why subjects would prefer to perform more in groups could be related to the social implication that people prefer to perform an activity when they are influenced by a social factor? The current version of the discussion does not include references to the state of the art. Please expand this section a bit more by posing theories, comparing results, and adding limitations. Also, please the authors should associate this results with the final objetive in general, i.e., how this results could impact as an alternative for therapy?
3. I have a concern about why statistical analyses were not done. The sample per groups may be low, but for example statistical tests with t-student for small samples or even factor analysis could be done.

Other minor comments:
4. (Abstract) At the end of the abstract it would be interesting to place a sentence saying how these results open possibilities for further studies in the area that may be of interest to sustainability readers.
5. (Intro) In the introduction and other sections there are certain statements that are long and cause the reader to get lost. Please recheck grammar and spelling to make the ideas clearer. Also, recheck the article for typos, e.g., line 55.
6. (Intro) Please mention acronyms the first time they are used, e.g., ISTAT.
7. (Intro) I have a slight concern when organizations are mentioned. It is understandable that most of them are Italian organizations whose original name is in their respective language. However, in different sections of the text, this may cause the statements to lose the sense of what is being said, e.g., lines 63-64. Please consider how to uniform and reorganize the manner of referencing organizations, institutions, etc.
8. (Intro) Line 69-70: Are the authors referring to the mortality rate? Please be more concise in the ideas, this can be confusing.
9. (Intro) Lines 73-74: In the intro when talking about patients. The authors could be a little more specific to the type of population and be clearer. For example, in line 88-89 reference is made to population requiring motor rehabilitation.
10. (Methodology) Please unify when referencing tables. Sometimes they mention tab. Sometimes Table.

11. (Methodology and Results) Table I appears first, but is mentioned after tables 2 and 3 in the body of the text. Please correct the tables position.
12. (Methodology and Results) More than a comment, it can be a recommendation. I consider that some results can be better presented or can be more visible in the form of figures, e.g. barplots. So a suggestion to the authors is to verify the feasibility of synchronizing the presentation of methodologies in tables, e.g. questionnaires, and results in figures.
10. (Conclusions) Statements mentioning limitations can be better placed in the discussion section.
11. (References) Please unify this section, e.g., why do not all articles include the doi?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

In the introduction and other sections there are certain statements that are long and cause the reader to get lost. Please recheck grammar and spelling to make the ideas clearer. Also, recheck the article for typos, e.g., line 55. In addition, please be clearer about which is the main subject that the sentence is referring to. Sentences like the one in lines 69-70 can be confusing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Manuscript ID: sustainability-3124159

I have completed the manuscript evaluation, and it has been improved compared to the last version. I am willing to accept the corrections introduced.

Author Response

Comment: have completed the manuscript evaluation, and it has been improved compared to the last version. I am willing to accept the corrections introduced.

Response: Thank you for the review and your comments

 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you to the authors for addressing my previous comments. I consider that the paper is suitable for publication in Sustainability. However, I suggest the authors improve the resolution of the figures and also revise labels, axis, which are not always in English (Figure 4 and 5 and Table 7).

Author Response

Comment: Thank you to the authors for addressing my previous comments. I consider that the paper is suitable for publication in Sustainability. However, I suggest the authors improve the resolution of the figures and also revise labels, axis, which are not always in English (Figure 4 and 5 and Table 7).

Response: Thank you for the review and your comments. We improved the resolution of the figures and translated the words in English as suggested.