Reviewer's report
Title:Barriers among Danish women and general practitioners to raising the
issue of intimate partner violence in general practice: a qualitative study
Version: 3Date:4 May 2013
Reviewer: Maria Papadakaki
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the invitation to review this interesting manuscript. Though there
has been a lot of prior work on victims’ and professionals’ attitudes about IPV in
other countries, less work exists in Denmark and this makes the current study
important. The use of qualitative methods is suitable given the small amount of
prior work with these populations. The study would have been much stronger if
more participants were employed in the study groups.
Major compulsory revisions:
1) INTRODUCTION: Adding research questions and study hypotheses at the end
of this section would help the readers understand what the authors are
investigating. Additionally, there are three categories of respondents employed in
the study and justification for this selection is not provided in the study objectives
and literature review.
2) METHODS: The process of recruitment is not very clear. It is not justified why
three respondent categories were employed. How many eligible GPs were in
total and how they were selected? Moreover, why the authors used snowball
techniques to recruit GPs? This technique would have been more relevant to
recruit abused women as it is used in populations that are not easily approached.
Why and how women without a history of abuse were selected through
facebook? What inclusion/exclusion criteria were in place and how eligibility of
participants was controlled. Women with previous history of abuse were both
selected through refugees and facebook? The selection process is not clear as
different recruitment methods are used interchangeably. The authors could
improve this part.
3) RESULTS: The presentation of the results is made by category of respondent
although a number of parent categories/key themes have been identified under
the paragraph CODING and ANALYSIS. These dominant themes have not been
presented anywhere in text. I suggest the results and discussion to be guided by
the themes identified in the analysis instead of the respondent category.
4) RESULTS: The authors have introduced a discussion of their findings and
comparison with other studies in the RESULTS section, which is rather unusual. I
suggest not including conclusions when presenting the results but later in the
DISCUSSION section.
5) DISCUSSION: The data from the three respondent groups could be
elaborated and exploited better in the discussion to lead to certain conclusions. It
seems that the three datasets are handled separately.
Minor essential revisions:
1) INTRODUCTION: The introduction could benefit from a large discussion
between supporters and opponents of routine enquiry and the relevant literature.
2) METHODS: I suggest providing all items of the interview guide (if many as an
Appendix) as one item per respondent group provided in Table 2 is not very
helpful.
3) METHODS: I have the feeling that the authors employed a thematic analysis
in the study. If so, please inform the Coding and Analysis section.
4) LIMITATIONS: The authors should refer to the limited external and internal
validity of the study due to the small sample size.
5) GENERAL REMARK: The authors need to emphasize throughout the paper
the preliminary nature of these results and be extremely careful not to make any
statements that would generalize these results.
Discretionary revisions:
1) RESULTS: Tables 1 and 3 could be incorporated into a small paragraph
describing the sample characteristics in more detail. Mean age should be
provided as well.
2) RESULTS: When speaking about the majority of participants in so small
numbers of participants, it would be helpful to include the actual number as well.
3) RESULTS: The past and present tenses are used interchangeably in the
RESULTS section and should be checked for consistency.
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