JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:The effects of postmenopausal hormone therapy on social activity, partner
relationship, and sexual life - experience from the EPHT trial
Version: 2Date:6 March 2009
Reviewer: Mireille van Poppel
Reviewer's report:
Would suggest changing the order of the paragraphs in the introduction. Would
start with opinion of MDs and lay people about HT for social and sexual
functioning. After that, the paragraph that there is no literature to back up these
opinions.
Statistics:
It is not always clear what has been used as the reference category in the
regression analyses. I assume that, for instance, exercise is entered in the
regression analysis as one categorical variable, with the category 'some' as
reference. This would be more clear if this category was included in the table,
with an OR of 1 (without CI). The same is true for all other variables with more
than 2 categories (BMI, marital status). For the other variables that could be
scored on a 4 or 5 point scale, it is not clear how these variables have been used
in the logistic regression. Please explain this in the methods section.
Tables:
Missed this the first time, but find it confusing how partner status/ marital status is
reported in the table. Divorced/single/widowed would all be situations without
partner. So why report 'no partner' seperately when you also report those things.
I would suggest reporting only married/cohabitating and no partner. This would
result in a table with 4 rows only, and this information can easily be incorporated
in the text, and table can be omitted.
I do not think all the notes in the tables indicating from which question the
information was derived are necessary.
The way the tables are organised is not consequent, since in the table about
exercise a column for the P value of the difference between placebo and blind
HT is given, and not in all the other tables. Reason for this is probably because
only statistically significant differences between these two groups were found for
these variables. But the differences are not discussed in the text, nor are they
consistently in one direction. I would suggest leaving out this column with the P
values.
In all tables, not all categories are given for a number of variables, but in a note it
is indicated that the rest is "....". I would prefer incorporating these categories in
the tables, since it makes it easier to read. I understand that these categories are
of less interest as outcomes. (see also comment regarding statistics).
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Clients preference for prenatal ultrasonography in Ibadan, South West of
Nigeria.
Version: 1Date:24 August 2008
Reviewer: patrick okonta
Reviewer's report:
MAJOR COMPULSORY REVISIONS
METHODOLOGY
1. The authors should state categorically if the study population were only self
referred pregnant women who had not had any prior contact with health care
providers which could have influenced their reason for wanting a scan. Or the
study populaion is all consecutive pregnant women whether referred by a health
care worker or not.
2. The authors should state explicitly the criteria for inclusion or exclusion of
pregnant women from the study.
MINOR ESSENTIAL REVISIONS
1. TITLE- The title could be rephrased. The present title suggests that the study
is about client's acceptibility or otherwise of ultrasound scanning. However,the
main objective of the study is to determine the reason for client requesting for a
scan.
2.The author from the department of epidemiology, medical statistics and
enviromental health is not identified in the title page.
3. The categorisation of clients occupation into professionals, civil servants,
artisans and others does not adequately discriminate the clients with regards to
their earning power which i suppose the authors wanted to do. While their
various educational status was adequately captured by the categorisation into
primary, secondary and tertiary, the same cannot be said of their economic
status. Who are the so called professionals? some professionals are also civil
servants; some professionals may be currently unemployed; I suggest you
categorise them with respect to their earnings or if that can not be done then omit
it from the study. As it is now , the result is not valid.
4. In the article the phrase "client's preferance for scan" and "reason for scan" is
used interchangeably . The two phrases convey different meanings . the author
should be consistent.
5. The Okonta study was done among pregnant women in Benin i.e. Mid-western
Nigeria and not South Eastern Nigeria
6. The recommendation by the authors is dificult to justify as the issue of timing
of the scan or limitations of USS was neither a part of the study nor did the
authors discuss it.
DISCRETIONARY REVISION
1. The introduction can be made shorter and more focused on giving cogent
reasons tp justify the study. How would clients preference for USS impact on
policy formulation or implementation?
2.In table 1, Age variable was divided into 4 categories and the education
variable divided into 3 categories. However in tables 2 and 3 these same
variables were divided into 3 and 2 categories respectively. Any particular
reason?
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that i have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Clients' reason for prenatal ultrasonography in Ibadan, South West of
Nigeria.
Version: 3Date:11 October 2008
Reviewer: OLIVER EZECHI
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
I have gone through the authors corrections and confirm that the Authors made
all the corrections I noted in my review except in two situations.
1. The use of fractions instead of absolute figures and percentages as is the
usual norm. In reply to my review on this issue they replied “All the authors felt
that the method of reporting results should not be monotonous and therefore, use
of fraction, percentage and absolute numbers are usually used together in any
standard peer reviewed journal. We therefore strongly believed that the current
method should be left alone”.
I am of the opinion that fractions should be changed to absolute numbers and
percentages. Reading journal article should be easy without one cracking his/her
brain to interpret fractions. The use of absolute figures and percentages make it
easier to comprehend because that what is conventionally used in daily practice
by readers. They authors claim that most of standard journal use fraction is
neither true nor convincing. Fraction is not an SI format. I just scanning through 4
high impact factor obstetric journals just to be double sure and reassure myself,
none of the over 20 articles therein used fractions.
Except the editors rule otherwise the authors should convert the entire fraction to
percentage and figures to make easy of reading.
2. (95% CI 0R= 1.47- 333.2). The CI is too wide and thus the association is too
weak to have any significance. Consulted with my biostatistician who feels same.
The authors need to add a statement of the weakness of this association. If not it
will give readers not well ground in statistical interpretation(s)-as most reader’s
are- the impression that there is an association, when little or none exists.
However if the authors feel strongly about this and insist otherwise you may wish
to refer to your statistician for review of the data and their interpretation.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Clients' reason for prenatal ultrasonography in Ibadan, South West of
Nigeria.
Version: 3Date:24 October 2008
Reviewer: patrick okonta
Reviewer's report:
major compulsory revisions- None
Minor essential revisions- None
Discretionary revisions- None-
The authors have corrected/addressed/justified issues earlier raised especially
the major compulsory revisions
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
i declare that i have no competing interest
Reviewer's report
Title:Clients' reason for prenatal ultrasonography in Ibadan, South West of
Nigeria.
Version: 5Date:23 December 2008
Reviewer: OLIVER EZECHI
Reviewer's report:
My review queries have been adequately addressed
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Satisfaction and quality of life in women who undergo breast surgery: a
qualitative study
Version: 1Date:10 September 2008
Reviewer: Amy Alderman
Reviewer's report:
Recommendation: Accept with minor modification
To whom it may concern:
Thank you for the opportunity to review the above manuscript authored by
Klassen et al. This is a qualitative study of important patient-reported outcomes
in breast surgery. Overall, my impression is that this work has a strong
methodological framework and will significantly contribute to the literature on this
important topic. My specific comments are as follows:
1. Methodology: semi-structured, in-depth patient interviews with 51% response
rate (N=48) from initial contact letter. IRB approval was obtained. Interviews were
taped, transcribed and coded. I have no issues with the study teams
methodologic approach. Appears both reproducible and valid.
2. Results: the qualitative results are nicely grouped into themes that support
what the researchers call their conceptual model. My only negative comment is
that what the researcher’s call their ‘conceptual model’ seems more like study
themes. I think of a conceptual model as more of a diagram explaining
moderating and confounding factors. For example, other factors can impact QOL
elements, such as soociodemographic factors and general health.
3. Discussion: this qualitative groundwork has informed an important research
initiative: the Breast Q. It will be interesting to see the themes from this qualitative
work develop in the quantitative patient-report outcomes from the Breast Q.
Reviewer's report
Title:Satisfaction and quality of life in women who undergo breast surgery: a
qualitative study
Version: 2Date:12 March 2009
Reviewer: Sophie Staniszewska
Reviewer's report:
I have read through the revised article and the authors' comments regarding the
changes they have made and I ma satisfied that they have dealt with the points
adequately. I am therefore more than happy to recommend publication of this
paper.
Reviewer's report
Title:Dietary fat intake and gestational weight gain in relation to estradiol and
progesterone plasma levels during pregnancy: a longitudinal study in Swedish
women
Version: 1Date:16 February 2009
Reviewer: Retha Newbold
Reviewer's report:
The paper titled “Dietary fat intake and gestational weight gain in relation to
estradiol and progesterone levels during pregnancy: a longitudinal study in
Swedish women” is well written and contains important new information. The
hypothesis that the in utero or early neonatal environment is playing a role in
modifying breast cancer risk has only recently gained acceptance. Accumulating
evidence does indeed suggest that increased levels of estradiol during
development are associated with increased risks for breast cancer later in life.
This study focused on factors such as dietary fat intake that may cause or be a
marker for higher estradiol or progesterone levels during pregnancy. Although
the cohort was small with 226 pregnant women, the data suggest that dietary fat
intake could not solely predict or cause higher estradiol levels during pregnancy.
This is an important finding that sets the stage for future studies which are
needed to tease out the factors, which are probably multiple, that are contributing
to high levels of estradiol and /or progesterone. The methods in the paper are
appropriate and well described, and the data is sound. The discussion and
conclusions are well balanced and are supported by the data. The authors clearly
acknowledge both published and unpublished work that provides the background
for the study.
No revisions are suggested.
Reviewer's report
Title:Dietary fat intake and gestational weight gain in relation to estradiol and
progesterone plasma levels during pregnancy: a longitudinal study in Swedish
women
Version: 1Date:12 March 2009
Reviewer: Norman Boyd
Reviewer's report:
Dietary fat intake and gestational weight gain in relation to estradiol and
progesterone plasma levels during pregnancy: a longitudinal study in Swedish
women. Lof, M et al.
This study examines the relationship between plasma levels of estradiol and
progesterone and intakes of dietary fats at 3 time points during pregnancy. No
associations are found between dietary intakes and plasma levels of either
hormone, although weight gain is found to be associated with change in
progesterone level. The question is of interest and the methods are appropriate
and in general well described (see below).
Specific points.
1. Parity is noted to be associated with plasma hormone levels but the data are
not shown, although they are of interest. This highlights the more general point
that the approach to analysis does not fully explore non-dietary sources of
variations in the measured hormones at each of the 3 time points. Confounding
from one or more of these sources could be concealing potentially important
sources of dietary variation in the hormones-candidates might be age, number of
live births, pre-pregnancy weight, current weight, prior use of OCs, education etc.
Adjustment for these variables focused only on longitudinal change does not I
think exclude their potential importance at particular time points.
2. Dietary intakes were assessed by food records. But no information is given
about the training given in how to collect such data or the quality control
procedures that were used to ensure that it was done completely.
3. The data showing weight gain and change in progesterone to be significantly
associated. However, both the univariate and multivariate data shown include 18
calculated p values, of which only 1 is <0.05, which, given the number of
comparisons made, is about the number expected by chance.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Dietary fat intake and gestational weight gain in relation to estradiol and
progesterone plasma levels during pregnancy: a longitudinal study in Swedish
women
Version: 1Date:17 March 2009
Reviewer: Chisato Nagata
Reviewer's report:
This study examined the associations of maternal fat intake and weight gain with
estradiol and progesterone levels during pregnancy. The objective of the study is
potentially important. Overall, the study design and methods appear satisfactory
and this is a well-written paper. I have only minor comments with suggestions for
discretionary revisions.
1. Page 4, para. 2: It is not clear why maternal weight gain was particularly
included as a main study variable adding to maternal fat intake. I wonder if the
authors assumed the effects of fat intake (or diet) on weight gain.
2. Page 8, para.2, line 4: BMI before pregnancy or BMI at the measurement?
3. Figures 1 and 2: Showing the values in a table rather than in figures might be
helpful.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Outcomes of vaginal hysterectomy for uterovaginal prolapse: a
retrospective, cross-sectional study of patient perceptions of results including
sexual activity, urinary symptoms, and provided care
Version: 1Date:6 February 2009
Reviewer: Rachel Pauls
Reviewer's report:
Minor essential revisions:
As this is a retrospective paper, there is inherent bias in data obtained. Although
this is well written and organized, I think this should be addressed as a limitation.
In addition, given many surgeons were included and many grades of prolapse,
that could impact the results. Perhaps some surgeons did inquire about
preoperative incontinence, whether others didn't. Since some patients had TVT-
this would appear to be the case.
In the introduction you talk about data in Sweden and then use US statistics.
Please clarify the language here and that the data regarding operations are not
Swedish data.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Outcomes of vaginal hysterectomy for uterovaginal prolapse: a
retrospective, cross-sectional study of patient perceptions of results including
sexual activity, urinary symptoms, and provided care
Version: 1Date:10 February 2009
Reviewer: John E Jelovsek
Reviewer's report:
Major Revisions:
1. The authors report on a retrospective cohort of women undergoing vaginal
hysterectomy and other procedures for pelvic organ prolapse. The study
population is poorly characterized as far as international standards for staging
vaginal prolapse. Additionally, none of the patients had an apical suspension
procedure that is usually performed along with vaginal hysterectomy to treat
uterovaginal prolapse. If this is true that vaginal hysterectomy was the only
procedure performed in 79% of the patients, then the majority of patients in this
study and their postoperative findings under estimate the severity of prolapse
and the results including complications of these treatments are extremely limited.
Although the authors acknowledge this as a weakness, this information is highly
relevant and essential when interpreting the results and would need to be
explained.
2. Additionally, it is clear from the literature that one cannot screen for prolapse
using questions only. Prolapse must be assessed by examination. Therefore, we
do not know how many patients failed the surgery during the follow up period.
Additionally, feeling of pressure or heaviness. Please provide data to support that
screening questions used in this study can be used to accurately assess degree
of prolapse without an examination.
Other questions remain:
3. Why were complications not assessed at 6 months?
4. How are the authors sure that he complications were from vaginal
hysterectomy and not the concomitant procedures?
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Outcomes of vaginal hysterectomy for uterovaginal prolapse: a
retrospective, cross-sectional study of patient perceptions of results including
sexual activity, urinary symptoms, and provided care
Version: 1Date:13 February 2009
Reviewer: Farr Nezhat
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
----------------------------
Clarify the inclusion and exclusion criteria for this study (if any). For example, in
Figure 1, 22 patients were excluded by the surgeon to be unsuitable for the
questionnaire. How was this determination made?
Return to sexual function was generally improved after the surgery. What was
the percentage of patients who had a decrease of sexual function – only the
increased percentages were reported in the paper.
I was confused about the number of women that were incontinent/continent
preoperatively, and those that became incontinent/continent postoperatively. In
the abstract, it was reported that 11% of those who were continent became
incontinent after the surgery. On Page 11, that percentage is stated as 14%. How
was incontinence or continence determined? Was this solely via patient report?
It is acknowledged that the amount of prolapse and severity of the disease was
not provided in the Swedish database. Was any examination done to
pre-operative status of the patients – whether they were sick with multiple
morbidities, or healthy with mild prolapse?
Minor Essential Revisions:
----------------------------
Abstract: Second sentence, would add “Women participating in the SNRGS were
asked to complete surveys at two and six months postoperativeLY.”
Methods: Need to clarify how exactly the questionnaires were sent out – via
mail/email, and how were the patients reminded (via phone, email, or a letter)?
Some of the details are in Table 1 – but should be in the text as well.
References: The references were appropriate for this paper.
Discretionary Revisions:
--------------------------
It would be interesting to see what exactly was in the preoperative, 2 month
postoperative, and 6 month postoperative questionnaire, as the entire paper is
based on what was asked. What were the difference between them?
There were a large number of tables in the paper, which did help to understand
the data. However, I do think that Table 1 could be eliminated, and the methods
described better in the text than in a table format.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Outcomes of vaginal hysterectomy for uterovaginal prolapse: a
retrospective, cross-sectional study of patient perceptions of results including
sexual activity, urinary symptoms, and provided care
Version: 2Date:23 February 2009
Reviewer: Farr Nezhat
Reviewer's report:
All corrections and clarifications have been addressed and made. The paper is
ready for publication.
Major Compulsory Revisions:
None
Minor Essential Revisions:
None
Discretionary Revisions:
None
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests below.