Experiences of Social Participation for Canadian Wheelchair Users with Spinal Cord Injury during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please find the attachment

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript and taking the time to provide comments which we have addressed in the attached document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper on the experiences of social participation for wheelchair users in Canada during COVID-19. This was an interesting paper and very topical. It is good to see research about the experiences of people with disabilities during the pandemic, though I observed that some of the findings seems to relate to wheelchair users experience of life in general rather than within the COVID-19 context.

I have some suggestions to improve the paper and have identified some grammatical issues, though I wasn’t looking for these specifically, so I am not sure I captured all of them. Another proofread by a native English speaker would be beneficial.

General comments:

·       -As stated above, some of the finding relate to experiences of life pre-COVID and I think the authors could delineate these experiences from COVID-specific experiences a bit better.

·        The participants were from two different areas of Canada that had different experiences of restrictions during COVID. This is not evident in the reporting of the data. Could the authors tease out the different experiences of the two groups during COVID? This is what the paper is about after all.

·        This paper covers a lot of ground. The qualitative and quantitative data is presented separately and there is some attempt to integrate this data in the discussion. For me, I found the qualitative data much more interesting and I think the paper could have successfully just presented this data. If presenting both, some better integration of the data in the discussion is needed. The quantitative measure and what it is measuring is not explained very clearly in the methods nor when presenting the data.

Specific comments:

·        Abstract - The language used to describe theme 2 is different in the abstract to the main part of the text. In the abstract it is “interruptions and changes to service provision” and in the text it is “There was no change in life habits”. I also think it would read better to state the themes and then discuss the implications of each separately in the abstract (if there is enough word count).

·        Lines 162-179 – the information on the qualitative analysis is quite brief. Did the coding template include the sub-themes as well or were the sub-themes consolidated into broader categories as the analysis progressed?

·        Do quotes need to be indented with quotation marks? Not sure what the journal requires. Perhaps the editor could clarify.

·        Line 351 – I think the expression “loners” is rather judgmental and also implies choice, which is not necessarily the case.

·        Line 399 – “casual walks” – as the participants are wheelchair users could you find a more appropriate phrase?

Grammar/typos:

·        Line 44 – “while” – should it be “whilst”?

·        Line 124 – the interview guide

·        Lines 206-207 – “obstacle impact” – please re-write this sentence as it doesn’t make sense. “which impacted” or “was an obstacle to”?

·        Line 342 – I am not sure “anecdotally” is a good expression here. Given this one participant experienced the situation differently to the others I would say “conversely”. You use the term anecdotally in several places – please re-word.

·        Line 351 – “their social participant” – participation

·        Line 363 – again “social participant” – should be participation

·        Line 402 – “et” – realization of satisfaction? Realization and satisfaction?

·        Line 405 – other not others

·        Line 417 – “injure” – injury?

·        Line 457 – “A few participants suggested….”

·        Line 542 “obstacle” – needs to be plural

·        Line 593 – “maintain social ties” – maintaining

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our manuscript and taking the time to provide comments which we have addressed in the document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf