Mental Health Biobanks—A Systematic Review on the Prevalence, Creation, and Implementation of Mental Health Biobanks Globally

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Definitively, this review provides evidence of a scientific gap on mental health, related to biological etiology of important neglected  psycho/mental diseases.

The review focuses on how global biobanks on key selected mental problems are created and managed.

I suggest some editing improvements by reducing repetitions and putting some tables ( those without detailed figures and statistic details) in Annex.

In the background section , it is  said that those affected "by psychiatric disorders are two or three times more likely to die" Could you make a more precise statement ?

In the methodology, the result presentation and the discussions, could you give some information on how the biomarkers have used and with which kind of outcomes in terms of knowledge on etiology, diagnosis  tools, treatment algorithm, improvements in biobanks management and prevention strategies.The review is quite descriptive and empiric while some information on result analyses, recommandations for some problem solving in biobank management are likely to have been mentionned in some articles, especially those with the higher number of participants.

I strongly recommand the authors to be more ambitious and precise in their recommandations. The readers should have ideas on next steps. For exemple, how low and middle development countries could take advantage of lessons learnt from best practice. How to stimulate  international research cooperation through operational network? How to learn from biobanks experiences for other diseases? 

The gap of this neglected area is so huge that you could bring a very useful contribution

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript psychiatryint-2516514 entitled  Mental health biobanks – A systematic review on the prevalence, creation, and implementation of mental health biobanks globally by Nitika Shalini Govind and Grace Branjerdporn is a systematic review about biobanking and mental illness.

Six databases were systematically searched. 1363 abstracts were screened, and 21 full texts were assessed for eligibility. Of the six papers included, there were few mental health specific biobanks globally with majority being in European and American countries. Most research was conducted examining depression with scant research on self-harm, personality disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Blood was the most common biological sample collected, and less common samples were hair and saliva. Mental health specific biobanks support the understanding of biological etiologies of psychiatric diseases. There are gaps in research on certain mental illnesses such as personality disorders and PTSD. More research is required in lower-middle income countries.

This systematic study was clearly planned and rigorously.

Methods are well described.

Results clear, tables and figure informative.

The authors reported limitations and implication of the results in the discussion

Minor comments

Line 35: a space at the beginning of the sentence

Line 224: table 5 has title on a page and the body of the table in another

English is good quality.

Some editing revision is required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate your response and amendments made.