FROM : The Past, Present, and Future Implications for Buddhist Nursing in Japan: A Narrative Review

Reviewer Comments-1

Comments

The title of this paper does not match the content. Reading the content, it seems to me that you are looking at the changing position of Buddhist nursing in the Japanese nursing education, not the changing of Buddhist nursing itself. The title needs to be changed accordingly.

Response

Buddhist nursing is a practical science (nursing art and science) that incorporates aspects of research, practice, training, history and so on. In the Results section, we extracted literature concerning not only training, but also practice and future implications, and discussed these. As it is more accurate to say this study is a narrative review, we have changed the title from “The Past, Present, and Future Implications for Buddhist Nursing in Japan: A Literature Review” to “The Past, Present, and Future Implications for Buddhist Nursing in Japan: A Narrative Review.”

comments

The main problem with this paper is that the question is ambiguous. Please either change the question itself to an appropriate one or make the argument in the introduction appropriate.

Response

As we noted at the end of the Introduction section, this study aims to clarify the past, present, and future implications for Buddhist nursing in Japan through a review of literature in Japanese. Then, in the Search strategy section, we provide the operational definition of Buddhist nursing.

This research is qualitative and does not require a research hypothesis. At the end of the Introduction section, to make it more understandable, we pointed out that “This will clarify the overall knowledge of Buddhist nursing research, practice, education, history, etc., and will help identify future issues and policies.”

comments

What is the point of daring to promote Buddhist nursing in Japan where many people do not believe in Buddhism? Japan has Shintoism and Animism and so on. And in fact, many people do believe in them.

Response

Animism represents the fundamental thinking behind Shintoism. The statement that 74% of Japanese do not have a religion also includes non-belief not only in Buddhism, but is Shintoism, Christianity, Islam and other faiths. Therefore we revised the sentence “74% of respondents replied they had no religion” to “74% of respondents replied they had no religion, including Buddhism, Shintoism, and so on.” As was noted in the Introduction section, we believe it is important to revive Buddhist nursing as a source of psychological and spiritual support, so a narrative review was conducted for use as basic material.

comments

If the author's problem is that Buddhist nursing is not spreading in Japan, it is natural to explore why. But that is not the question now. The question is not connected to the previous discussion. The question is not connected to the previous discussion. If you are aware of the problem that Buddhist nursing is not spreading in Japan, it is natural to explore why, etc. But that is not the question now.

Response

As was noted in the Conclusion section, factors that inhibit the revitalization and development of Buddhist nursing will be topics for future research. Nevertheless in the Discussion section, we touched upon some of the inhibiting factors. The objective of this study is to clarify the past, present, and future implications for Buddhist nursing in Japan. Among the articles targeted for this research, few describe the reasons why Buddhist nursing has not disseminated more widely, so in the future, we would like to expand the target literature and engage in further research, as well as conduct semi-structured interviews with patients, religious persons, and others. In the United States, for example, a Journal of Christian Nursing is published, and while Christian nursing exists, it is not considered a major area within the nursing field. Approximately 30% of Americans currently state they have no religious affiliation, and the situation there regarding religion-based nursing has been changing.

comments

Methods, Search strategy

Why did you focus on Ichushi Web? Also, why did you conduct only keyword search? I think this is an inappropriate way to obtain literature, because this study does not want to know about previous research reports.

Literature study is based on collecting sufficient and appropriate literature to meet the question. I think that you have not been able to refer to important literature because you have focused on collecting literature as planned rather than exploring the question seriously.

Just by looking at the current question, it is not clear how the interest of this study differs from that of the existing review literature. For example, Sekiya's (2003) paper examines the historical evolution of Buddhist nursing in Japan. I think her paper is of good quality. You should write what original perspective your study has on these previous studies. To do so, you need to make an academic question first.

Response

This research targeted papers that understood and consciously conducted research based on the term Buddhist nursing. Therefore, excluding religious studies, we limited our literature database to Ichushi Web, which is the only medical literature database in Japan and whose evidence level is guaranteed to some extent. By limiting the results to papers that use the keyword “Buddhist nursing,” we clarified the current state of nursing research on religion-based nursing in Japan. In addition, Sekiya’s paper summarizes the history of Buddhist nursing, and we have cited it several times in the Discussion session, and expanding on that paper we presented our own discussion.

comments

Data analysis and synthesis

The same can be said above for the analysis you have done. Rather than focusing on a particular method of literature research, you should concentrate on exploring the answer to the research question. In the first place, the results make me wonder if the analytical method presented here was done correctly. This is because I suspect that this method of analysis is only suitable for the natural science literature. Could you please indicate how you performed the analysis with reference to this method?

Response

This study was conducted in accordance with the standard method of literature review in nursing. The trustworthiness of qualitative research is also thoroughly explained in the Data analysis and synthesis section. As per your request, we have indicated the source (below) that details the analysis method.

[17] Torraco, R. J. (2016). Writing integrative literature reviews: Using the past and present to explore the future. Human Resource Development Review, 15(4), 404-428. https://doi.org /10.1177/1534484316671606

comments

Ethical consideration

I think this part is unnecessary, but I have one thing to say.

“The authors' intentions and meanings of the articles were not compromised.”

I was surprised to read this. Can you really guarantee what is written here? I think this is impossible. Citations always include the reader's interpretation. Rather, the discrepancy between the writer and the reader leads to creative development of the literature study.

Response

We are concerned that our English expression was not fully clear. As a general rule, results should be described in a way that do not compromise the author’s intent or meaning. To facilitate understanding therefore, we have changed this expression to “We faithfully read the content of the paper and took care not to compromise the author’s intent or meaning.”

Comments

results

Overall, I do not think the content is appropriate to the current question and title.

The person cited in the paper, Mr. Suzuki, is a cultural anthropologist. He merely did fieldwork at an institution in Thailand and is not a person involved in Buddhist nursing. His literature is inappropriate for the subject of this study.

 

Response

In the Search strategy section, we point out that “Owing to the small number of articles, inclusion and exclusion criteria were not set, and all 10 articles were included in the analysis.” We analyzed all searched articles, regardless of the author’s area of specialization, regarding the past, present, and future implications of Buddhist nursing. Suzuki’s paper included a comparison between Thailand and Japan, which was included in the results, and we discussed how this might be applied to Buddhist nursing in Japan. Furthermore, Suzuki’s paper is an ethnography from an outsider’s perspective and contains extremely valuable data.

Comments

Discussion

The discussion does not correspond to the research question. The discussion is not a place for the author to express his own thoughts such as "We look forward to harnessing this potential to develop Buddhist nursing in the future”. Please carefully discuss the answer to the research question.

response

We think the problem here may be that understanding of the research question between the reviewer and the authors are at variance. The objectives of the research are first, a review of literature to clarify the past, present, and future implications for Buddhist nursing in Japan. Consequently, the past, present, and future implications are separated into three parts and discussed accordingly. The remark “We look forward to harnessing this potential to develop Buddhist nursing in the future” is derived from the results, and is therefore considered discussion.

Comments

Conclusion

This is where you should write your conclusions. As I have said many times, this requires an academic question.

Response

The Conclusion is in line with the objective, which is to clarify the past, present, and future implications for Buddhist nursing in Japan. To improve comprehension the third sentence has been corrected from “Research is needed to mitigate factors that inhibit the revitalization and development of Buddhist nursing, which are admittedly difficult to understand and apply to current scientific nursing theory” so that it reads “For the future revival of Buddhist nursing, research is needed to mitigate factors that inhibit the revitalization and development of Buddhist nursing, which are admittedly difficult to understand and apply to current scientific nursing theory.”

Reviewer comments-2

The article looks grate but the title "The future of Buddhist nursing" does not match the content. Rearrange the reference and change the structure of manuscript as per the guideline

Response

For the purpose of clarification, the passage “Buddhist nursing is by no means limited to assisting subjects in their daily lives, but is also linked to the prevention of pre-symptomatic disease” has been changed to the following: “Buddhist nursing is by no means limited to assisting subjects in their daily lives, but is also linked to the prevention of pre-symptomatic disease, which is regarded as important in the future of Japanese healthcare for health care cost reduction.”