Title: The Intersection of Intimate Partner Violence with Sexual Reproductive Health in the
Pacific: findings from a Kiribati population study
Version: 3 Date: 23 Aug 2024
Reviewer's report:
Overall, I think the manuscript reads much better, and I appreciate the authors engaging seriously
with the critiques from the first review.
Here are some overall comments:
• This paper still has multiple grammatical mistakes. It needs a careful edit for grammar and
readability. Here are a few examples:
o Page 6: “In contrast other have found that women expose to IPV are more likely to protect
themselves from unwanted pregnancies [51-54] .” This should say “other studies” or something.
o First sentence of the Discussion: “This paper explored the intersection of SRH and IPV, in
particular, issues for young women and women in remote areas.” This is hard to understand.
Would be better rewritten as: “This paper explores the intersection of sexual and reproductive
health (SRH) and intimate partner violence (IPV), with a particular focus on issues affecting
young women and those in remote areas.”
• I think the introduction would benefit tremendously from sub-headings to help with
organization (if allowed by the journal).
• I would give some careful thought to the aim of the paper, which currently reads:
o “This paper aims to explore how SRH intersects with IPV among young Kiribati women,
including the need for and access to family planning and use of contraception after birth.”
• I think you are actually looking at how IPV intersects with SRH (with SRH being the primary
focus), and if you change the order, it would be more clear. You also seem to describe both IPV
and family planning separately, so maybe the aim should be:
“This paper aims to describe the prevalence of IPV, describe family planning use, and explore
how IPV intersects with SRH among young Kiribati women, including met and unmet need for
family planning and contraceptive use.”
• Final thought on the aim is that I don’t think you actually can say anything about access
to family planning, so I would take that out and have it reflect your variables and the survey
questions more closely (which is what I tried to do above)
Here are some specific comments:
1. While I appreciate that there is now information to introduce us to Kiribati, I think that
paragraph 3 (starting with “Sexual and Reproductive health (SRH is a fundamental human
right…”) should be the first paragraph. I think that will set the stage for situating the Kiribati
work.
2. On Page 5, when you say “This study revealed a lack of contraceptive use” it is confusing
which study you are referring to, because you cite different papers than in the previous sentences.
Please fix this.
3. Please fix the “Paul, 2022 #172” citation on page 6.
4. I don’t think it is helpful to provide a full recap of all of the findings in the first paragraph
of the discussion, as a reader it feels repetitive. The second paragraph of the discussion is much
stronger.
5. The limitations should reflect that your methodology is descriptive and that the data are cross-
sectional, so you cannot tease out how IPV affects contraceptive use accounting for temporality
(with IPV occurring before the contraceptive use).