The Impact of COVID-19 on Health and Well-Being: Foreign Medical Students in Eastern Europe

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The aim of this study is to examine the pandemic impact on such students and to generate useful information that maybe applied to their health, well-being and learning experience. The paper proposes a good idea but presents many critical issues.

The first, quite serious, concerns the erroneous use of the concept of "social distancing"; in the technical language of the social sciences, what the SarsCovid-19 pandemic required is a form of physical, not social distancing, the latter in fact refers to social aspects such as the distance between a well-to-do class and a poor one, a managerial role by a simple employee, etc. Therefore, it would be appropriate to use the concept of physical distancing, because it is a form of exclusively body distancing that has nothing to do with social aspects. In this regard, I invite the authors to read more literature and social theories on the different types of distancing.

In general, the introduction is excessively short, in this regard it would be appropriate to increase the references and content on the social impacts of Covid-19, as there is a large literature on the subject.

Therefore, to increase the quality of the article, as an introduction it would be advisable to create a mapping of foreign medical students, using a table in which authors should specify their university, country and nationality. This is to get a starting and introductory idea of ​​the foreign student population in Eastern Europe. This can be done through a brief review of the available scientific literature on the topic relating to foreign students in Europe.

From a methodological point of view, it would be appropriate to specify why the use of Likert scales has been used with reckless references on the use of scales in the survey and study of attitudes. The paragraph (lines 78-81) shows a series of social impacts of Covid-19, to which reference should be made. As for statistical analysts, more details on the processing and analysis used should be provided.

The paragraph on participants should be implemented on how students were recruited. In this regard, I suggest indicating inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The results section lacks descriptive statistical processing. It would be advisable to insert graphs and tables on the various frequency distributions of the variables considered.

The discussion, like the introduction, is extremely short. All proposed topics must be deepened at length and for content with multiple references. In particular, it would be necessary to compare the results obtained with data that show similarity in terms of typology and impact.

The limitations of the study need to be discussed thoroughly, both in quantitative and qualitative terms.

Finally, I suggest writing a paragraph on the conclusions with which you make yourself known why the work is important and what kind of innovative contribution is proposed to the entire scientific community.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for all the helpful comments. Below are our replies to each query.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

1. Foreign Medical Students in Eastern Europe: The Impact of COVID-19 on Health and Well-Being. This title can be written as  The Impact of

COVID-19 on Health and Well-Being: Foreign Medical Students in Eastern Europe. The paper investigates foreign medical students to determine the impact of covid-19 on their health and well-being

2. It seems original but the literature review should be expanded and similar prior studies should be cited. The paper should be revised by adding literatüre and more specific findings. Results are not enough. There should be more political implications.

3. Is the paper well written? Is the text clear and easy to read?

It is ok but each part seems too short. The author(s) should expand each of them

Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments.

4. The aim and metroda should be clearly examined. 

5. Current findings should be compare with prior ones. There should be more political suggestions.

 

6. The author(s) should add more up to date references. 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for all the helpful comments. Below are our replies to each query.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Amended manuscript is acceptable.