The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for your paper named "The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers". This paper nicely addresses the research question that the authors raised. However, this paper may have more practical application if the authors provide more context regarding why they are specifically interested in German-speaking rowers. What were the reasons for this inclusion criterion? Why not rowers with no restriction on the language they speak?
Author Response
Reviewer 1
Comment: Thank you for your paper named "The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers". This paper nicely addresses the research question that the authors raised. However, this paper may have more practical application if the authors provide more context regarding why they are specifically interested in German-speaking rowers. What were the reasons for this inclusion criterion? Why not rowers with no restriction on the language they speak?
Response:
Thank you so much for your efforts and your help to improve the quality of our manuscript.
As for the inclusion criteria, we were bound to the language of the questionnaire, which was German. So, people that were not able to fill out a survey in German could not participate, as in any other study using online surveys. Some of those have been cited. So, the problem is not about speaking the language, but to be able to read and understand it. We totally agree! In response to your request, we added this aspect to the methods and the limitations section.
“We conducted a non-representative study using an online survey in German among adult rowers…”
“In this study, we conducted an analysis involving adult rowers who completed an online survey in German. It is important to acknowledge that the collected data may therefore not fully represent the entire population.”
Again, thank you very much for your valuable suggestions!
Reviewer 2 Report
The study, conducted by Maximilian Pöschl, David Jungwirth, and Daniela Haluza, aimed to examine changes in the daily life of rowers and their engagement in rowing activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through an online questionnaire distributed among German-speaking rowers in 2021, the authors collected data from 234 participants who met the inclusion criteria. The findings revealed a significant reduction in the amount of time spent rowing during the pandemic, along with a shift towards home-based training and a complete cessation of rowing activities. Additionally, both female and male rowers reported a notable decline in life satisfaction compared to the pre-pandemic period. These results highlight the wide-ranging impact of the pandemic on sports activities among rowers and emphasize the need to prioritize and ensure the continuity of active sports engagement in future public health crises.
Considering the broader scope of the Hygiene Journal, which primarily focuses on topics such as oral and dental hygiene, hand hygiene, food hygiene, and healthcare epidemiology, it is my recommendation that this manuscript be redirected to a journal that is better suited to publish research on the impact of COVID-19 on active living, sports engagement, and life satisfaction.
needs revisions.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Comment:
The study, conducted by Maximilian Pöschl, David Jungwirth, and Daniela Haluza, aimed to examine changes in the daily life of rowers and their engagement in rowing activities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through an online questionnaire distributed among German-speaking rowers in 2021, the authors collected data from 234 participants who met the inclusion criteria. The findings revealed a significant reduction in the amount of time spent rowing during the pandemic, along with a shift towards home-based training and a complete cessation of rowing activities. Additionally, both female and male rowers reported a notable decline in life satisfaction compared to the pre-pandemic period. These results highlight the wide-ranging impact of the pandemic on sports activities among rowers and emphasize the need to prioritize and ensure the continuity of active sports engagement in future public health crises.
Considering the broader scope of the Hygiene Journal, which primarily focuses on topics such as oral and dental hygiene, hand hygiene, food hygiene, and healthcare epidemiology, it is my recommendation that this manuscript be redirected to a journal that is better suited to publish research on the impact of COVID-19 on active living, sports engagement, and life satisfaction.
Response:
Thank you very much for your efforts to evaluate our manuscript and that you took a close look at the submission guidelines.
In fact, our article is not generally about the exercise behavior of rowers, but very specifically about the change in exercise behavior due to the closure of sports facilities and hygiene regulations as well as the change in quality of life caused by the pandemic. We even wrote the paper specifically for the Special Issue "COVID-19: Health and Hygiene". This Special Issue covers, among other things, the areas of public health approaches, preventive measures, and communication. It is related to the journal, but addresses are different section of the field of hygiene. Fitting keywords from the Special Issue list are e.g. COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, environment, epidemics, COVID-19 prevention, treatment, and mitigation, social determinants of health, history of infectious diseases and pandemics, risk management plans, risk communication, and interventions.
Please note that we published a similar paper on golf and COVID-19 at the beginning of the year in Hygiene in the respective Special Issue, see:
Jungwirth D, Gahbauer S, Haluza D. Perceived Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Playing Golf: A Qualitative Content Analysis Study. Hygiene. 2023; 3(1):45-56. https://doi.org/10.3390/hygiene3010006 https://www.mdpi.com/2673-947X/3/1/6
Again, thank you very much for your time!
Reviewer 3 Report
Please see attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Reviewer 3
Comment:
Review Report “The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers”
Summary: Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit Austria on 25 February 2020, there are many studies dealing with the effects of the pandemic and therewith associated restriction on sports behavior. This study has been the one of the very few studies dealing with the effects on rowers. A further goal of this study was to evaluate whether life satisfaction changed, when comparing the time before to the time during the pandemic. The results indicate that the time spent rowing outdoors significantly decreased during the pandemic.
Weakness: There are several places which contradict the research or bring the confusion. For instance, on line 115 and 116, was it talking about rowing or climbing? General questions to help guide your review report for research articles:
- Is the manuscript clear, relevant for the field and presented in a well- structured manner? Yes, it is well structured.
- Are the cited references mostly recent publications (within the last 5 years) and relevant? Does it include an excessive number of self-citations? It includes good amount of recent publications. It does not include an excessive number of self-citation.
- Is the manuscript scientifically sound and is the experimental design ap- propriate to test the hypothesis? Please read the part of “Weakness” above.
- Are the manuscript’s results reproducible based on the details given in the methods section? Yes results are reproducible.
- Are the figures/tables/images/schemes appropriate? Do they properly show the data? Are they easy to interpret and understand? Is the data interpreted appropriately and consistently throughout the manuscript? Yes.
- Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented? Yes.
Response:
Thank you so much for your efforts and your help to improve the quality of our manuscript. We are thankful for the hint with the confused terms rowing vs. climbing. In response to this request, we corrected the wording in the manuscript, as follows:
(3) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m worried about getting infected while rowing, and (4) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I disinfect my hands before and after rowing.
Again, thanks for your time to review our manuscript.
Reviewer 4 Report
The sentence "(4) Due to the COVID-19 pan-115 demic, I disinfect my hands before and after climbing. 116
This sentence does appear to be an error, most likely a lapsus calami. Given the context and the title of the paper, "The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers," the focus should be on rowing activities, not climbing. Thus, it would be more appropriate if the statement were: "4) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I disinfect my hands before and after rowing." The authors should clarify or correct it.
In your Materials and Methods section, specifically under the Statistical data analysis subsection, it would be beneficial to clarify whether you tested for normality of the data before applying the T tests. If you did conduct a normality test, please specify the exact test used (e.g., Shapiro-Wilk, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, etc.). This additional information would enhance the clarity and reproducibility of your methodology.
Author Response
Reviewer 4
Comment 1:
The sentence "(4) Due to the COVID-19 pan-115 demic, I disinfect my hands before and after climbing. 116
This sentence does appear to be an error, most likely a lapsus calami. Given the context and the title of the paper, "The Impact of COVID-19 on Active Living and Life Satisfaction of Rowers," the focus should be on rowing activities, not climbing. Thus, it would be more appropriate if the statement were: "4) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I disinfect my hands before and after rowing." The authors should clarify or correct it.
Response 1:
Thank you so much for your efforts and your help to improve the quality of our manuscript. We are thankful for the hint with the confused terms rowing vs. climbing.
In response to this request, we corrected the wording in the manuscript, as follows:
(3) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m worried about getting infected while rowing, and (4) Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I disinfect my hands before and after rowing.
Comment 2:
In your Materials and Methods section, specifically under the Statistical data analysis subsection, it would be beneficial to clarify whether you tested for normality of the data before applying the T tests. If you did conduct a normality test, please specify the exact test used (e.g., Shapiro-Wilk, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, etc.). This additional information would enhance the clarity and reproducibility of your methodology.
Response 2:
We totally agree and added the following statement to the Methods section:
“We assessed the normality of the data using the Shapiro-Wilk test.”
Again, thanks for your time to review our manuscript.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
No further comments.
