Systematic Review on the Positive Mental Health Impact of Older Adults Participation in Horticultural Activities in Long Term Care Facilities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Thank you very much for having, once again, the possibility to have the opportunity to review this work.

 

It is important to note that the author has made a significant effort to improve the previous manuscript.

 

However, it is worth considering again some relevant issues to improve the work presented:

- Revisions should be at least 6 months old. In this case, the final search date is 1 July 2022. More than one year.

- The analysis is extremely brief. It would be necessary to go more deeply into the findings and to provide the limitations of the work. 

- The conclusions are too short. It would be necessary to expand them considerably in response to the objective of the review.

Author Response

Thank you for your great comments and precious time, we have revised our manuscript according to them. Please check the revision and attached response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)

 

I can summarise my brief comments:   (1) The article has been improved, and reviewer comments have been accommodated. The paper is now ready for publication, subject to minor amendments - the initials LTCF presumably stands for Long Term Care Facility. This should be spelled out in the Abstract, and the Text.   (2) The distinction between Table Top Gardening, and Horticulture would be made more explicit.   (3) The English language needs further refining. AI program would do this, and be entirely ethical.

Author Response

Thank you for your great comments and precious time, we have revised our manuscript according to them. Please check the revision and attached response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review the article 'Systematic Review of the Health Effects of Horticultural Therapy for Older Adults Using Evidence-Based Nursing'.

The topic may be important, however, there are several concerns. I listed the comments for further consideration below.

1. Lines 43-44 and 47-48: The information on these lines overlaps completely.

2. Line 75: This paragraph should be referenced.

3. Since the aim of this study was related to well-being in the aging population, it seems necessary to extend the introduction section as follows: what is well-being? How does it associate with mental health? There is also a lack of information on the symptoms of depression and anxiety in aging people.

4. The research questions (RQ) must be recorded specifically at the end of the introduction section.

5. Lines 101-103: Whether the different types of experiment designs used in present review could lead to biases in this study. The Authors must write a limitation paragraph, too.

6. Lines 145-146: PRISMA should be referenced.

7. The results section is very confusing. For the sake of clarity for potential readers, the Authors should rewrite the results section.

8. As the Authors are writing about ‘Horticultural Therapy’, I suggest that the discussion section should be expanded and referred to the forest volatile organic compounds along with their effect on the symptoms of anxiety and depression. You can also discus the issues on how these volatile organic compounds affect the levels of stress hormone, namely cortisol, in the human body.

The Authors can follow this reference: Antonelli, M.; Donelli, D.; Barbieri, G.; Valussi, M.; Maggini, V.; Firenzuoli, F. Forest Volatile Organic Compounds and Their Effects on Human Health: A State-of-the-Art Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 6506

Warm Regards

Minor editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thank you for your great comments and precious time, we have revised our manuscript according to them. Please check the revision and attached response.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The modifications made by the authors are consistent with the review made by this reviewer. 

Author Response

Thanks very much for your valuable time and precious comments!

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

The answers of the authors were vague and unconstructive. There are still remaining concerns that authors need to address and correct.

1. Given that this review is restricted to a very small number of articles, I suggest that authors consider other ways of strengthening the manuscript.

2. The research questions (RQ) must be recorded specifically at the end of the  introduction section.

Please write:

RQ1: “your text“?

RQ2: “your text“?

3. In addition, a common practice is to add in the Introduction part a paragraph about the structure of the paper, summarizing briefly the information what can be found in which section. It will definitely help the reader to navigate throughout the paper.

4. Line 170: PRISMA should be referenced.

5. Reviewer comment: “Point 8: As the Authors are writing about ‘Horticultural Therapy’, I suggest that the discussion section should be expanded and referred to the forest volatile organic compounds along with their effect on the symptoms of anxiety and depression. You can also discus the issues on how these volatile organic compounds affect the levels of stress hormone, namely cortisol, in the human body. The Authors can follow this reference: Antonelli, M.; Donelli, D.; Barbieri, G.; Valussi, M.; Maggini, V.; Firenzuoli, F. Forest Volatile Organic Compounds and Their Effects on Human Health: A State-of-the-Art Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 6506 Response 8: Thank you for your great comments”.

Authors answer: “As suggested, Incorporate it into the next phase of the article”.

However, I can find the information in a revised manuscript version. Please discuss this issue further.

6. Please expand your limitation paragraph. Please describe limitations, which are related to the internal and external validity of this study. There are lots of those in your study.

7. Conclusions can not be so globalized. Please answer your Research Question.

8. The English must be rechecked. For example, revise the sentences such as “Jueng & Chen's intervention study found that Older adult residents in LTCFs who…” (line 286).

9. References must be adjusted to MDPI house.

10. Please recheck the use of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes throughout the text.

Kind Regards

Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

Thanks very much for your constructive comments and valuable time. We have revised our manuscript carefully according to them. Please find attached our point-by-point reply to you. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report (Previous Reviewer 4)

I have no more concerns.

Best regards

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please rewrite and organize your methods, results, and discussion sections following these systematic reviews;

  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157765

then we can recheck the manuscript again after you rewrite and organize these sections.

Please check the academic writing and language errors.

Reviewer 2 Report

The work presented is of enormous interest and relevance. It is worth having data and evidence about the use of horticultural therapy with older adults. 

 

Below we present a series of elements that could improve the work presented:

- The abstract is excessively long (500 words). It does not fit the requirements of the journal (200 words).

- It is necessary to define more clearly the objective of the work.

- It is necessary to include in the methodology aspects that the authors have only included in the abstract. For example, the period in which the search is performed.

- It is important to update the review. A review whose papers were reviewed in February of last year is meaningless. 

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper offers a useful review of the benefits of exposure to horticulture for elderly people in settings where garden facilities of various types are offered, with beneficial outcomes in terms of mental and physical health. The systematic literature review has a sound methodological basis and offers helpful conclusions for those who design horticultural environments with health-linked purposes. The authors might like to add a sentence or two, speculating on the costs versus the benefits of 'horticultural therapy.

Besides, all four of the studies located for purposes of review come from Chinese cultures (two from PRC, one from Hong Kong, one from Taiwan). This latter is a study conducted by the authors of the paper under review, undertaken in Taiwan. This does raise the question of whether Chinese cultures have a particular emphasis on the importance of horticultural environments for good health - an issue not addressed in this paper (might this also be true of Korea and Japan? - There is certainly a research literature from Korea and Japan on such therapy). See, for example:

Nicholas, S.O., Giang, A.T. and Yap, P.L., 2019. The effectiveness of horticultural therapy on older adults: A systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 20(10), pp.1351-e1.

 Overall, this was an interesting and pleasing paper, which deserves publication, but perhaps with an additional section on cultural contexts.

Reviewer 4 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review the topic „Systematic Review of the Health Effects of Horticultural Therapy for Older Adults Using Evidence-Based Nursing“.

However, I have major concerns:

Abstract

The adjustments are required.

The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background, 2) Methods, 3) Results, 4) Conclusion

Introduction

Well-written.

However, I would suggest a clearer and more detailed description of the hypotheses and aim of this study.

Material and Methods

Lines 117-118: I suggest that the aim of this study should be described only in the introduction section.

I recommend adapting the second figure to the standard PRISMA flow diagram (please see: http://prisma-statement.org/prismastatement/flowdiagram.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1).

It seems necessary to clarify the title of Table 3.

On page 7, the table does not have a title, so the data needs to be refined.

Results

This section must be overwritten. I suggest that the essential results of this study should be described.

Discussion

In the discussion section, the authors described the results. I suggest discussing and interpreting the results in this section in the context of the research questions.

Conclusions

The conclusions must to be adjusted according to the aim of this study as well as research questions.

References

The references must be corrected in accordance with the requirements of the MDPI house.

Please describe the data in the back Back Matter.

Kind Regards

Extensive editing of English language required.