JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Dear Editor: We read the paper by Dewa et al. [1] with interest. The authors performed a meta-analysis to conceptualize, appraise, and synthesize evidence on QSC within digital interventions (D-QSC) and the impact on depression and anxiety outcomes for young people aged 14-24 years. They demonstrated that D-QSC is an important and underconsidered component for youth depression and anxiety outcomes. Researchers and developers should consider targeting improved QSC between clinicians and young people within digital interventions for depression. Future research should build on our framework to further examine relationships among individual attributes of QSC, various digital interventions, and different populations. After carefully reading, I wish to put forth the following suggestions. Included studies by (Radovic et al, 2017) [2] and (Radovic et al, 2017) [3] in Table 2 (Data extraction and quality assessment of included studies) were created by the same author team with the similar characteristics (year, country, study design, setting and participants, digital intervention, and outcomes and measures). This duplicate inclusion of the data would affect the credibility of the meta-analysis’s final results. I recommend that the authors must exclude duplicate works in the meta-analysis and a previous correction and reliable checking of the data insertion is required. Due to these mistakes, I suggest that the authors further refine the inclusion criteria for the included studies to avoid duplication of inclusion.