Drama Therapy for Children and Adolescents with Psychosocial Problems: A Systemic Review on Effects, Means, Therapeutic Attitude, and Supposed Mechanisms of Change
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper deals with an important topic. It adds an important layer to understanding the effect of drama therapy on children and adolescents with psychosocial problems. Also, it sheds a light on the cumulative knowledge in the field and contributes to the conceptualization of the empirical findings that have been gathered so far.
Therefore, I found the paper worthy of being published in the issue with minor revisions. Below are my comments to the authors.
Introduction
1. In line 48 you wrote: "Addressing these problems at early age is necessary in order to prevent them from getting worse". This argument should be supported by a reference.
2. Pay attention to punctuation. For example, in line 95 – add a period after the word 'therapy': "A few mechanisms of change are described in drama therapy." Then add comma: "For example, drama therapists and adult…"
3. Lines 95-101: The sentence is too long and complicated. I suggest dividing it to shorter sentences with conjunctions.
Methods
4. Inclusion criteria: Since the search included terms related to the infancy period (e.g., "babies", "infant", "newborn" and others), it is important to specify the lower limit of the age and not just the upper limit. There are unique characteristics of play and interventions in drama therapy during the infancy, hence the importance for the distinction between infancy and childhood. If you did included studies dealing with drama therapy for psychosocial problems in infancy, it is necessary to state it in the title of the article as well.
5. Selection of studies: It is unclear who is S.S? These initials do not correspond to the names of the authors as they appear in the title. Anyway, I think it is better to omit the initials and to describe this paragraph in a more general statement.
6. Data collection process and analysis:
6.1 The whole paragraph is written awkwardly and I assume there are some unnecessary repetitions that were originated from mistakes. I suggest using shorter sentences and less of the word "and", it will help the reader follow the descriptions and better understand what is presented. In addition, make sure that the verbal breakdown and the structure of the tables match.
6.2 In line 142 – the reference to Table 1 should be moved and located after "control invention/care as usual".
6.3 In line 141 you wrote "quality assessment rate" and then you wrote again in line 143 "quality assessment score". This data does not appear in the tables, I assume it's a mistake.
6.4 The term 'adaptive approach' which is mentioned in Table 3 should be explained in the introduction.
6.5 The visuality of the tables can benefit from aligning the rows within columns.
Results
7. General study characteristics: Be consistent with the use of initials. Use RCT/CCT or randomized controlled trials/clinical controlled trials in the same form along the manuscript. Both options are correct, but consistency is crucial.
8. Specific mechanisms of change: In line 413 you wrote "Eight categories were identified reflecting specific mechanisms of change", while eventually you described nine categories. Please change accordingly (in the discussion you mentioned nine mechanisms correctly).
General
9. I recommend checking again carefully all the punctuation marks throughout the article.
10. Reference list: make sure that all the references appear uniformly, including the spaces between the words and avoid using capital letters in the middle of the sentence.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper shows Drama therapy for children and adolescents with psychosocial problems: a systemic review on effects, means, therapeutic attitude, and supposed mechanisms of change. The findings suggest that no direct relations were found between the results, drama therapeutic attitude, means, and mechanisms of change.
1. The PRISMA recommends reviewers consider using the exclusion criteria.
2. For the study assessment, what standard measurement tools did the author use to make the assessment? Please provide relevant references.
3. Authors should explain the review study's limitations in the discussion, especially why did not conduct a meta-analysis, and others.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Author,
Dear Authors, I am very pleased to read your research. Although my comments are in the pdf, and also I have a question:
I would like to add Prisma Checklist as an additional file.
The fact that there are old studies among the 10 articles included may affect the timeliness of the research. Can a criterion such as the last 20 years be added to the inclusion criteria? Is it right to take such a wide range of years to review research? are there any references that such old work could be included?
Best wishes
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
