Reviewer's report
Title:Sexual coercion among married women in Nepal
Version: 1Date:12 May 2010
Reviewer: Richard de Visser
Reviewer's report:
- Major Compulsory Revisions
1] The literature review is a little odd in terms of its focus. The authors should to
refer to findings from relevant large scale (nationally representative) studies of
the prevalence and correlates of sexual coercion; particularly studies that
highlight the broad and lasting impacts of sexual coercion - e.g. Choi et al., 1998;
de Visser et al., 2007; Laumann et al., 1994; Silverman et al., 2001). These data
would strengthen the current literature review, which gives too much attention to
qualitative studies.
Choi, K-H., Binson, D. Adelson, M. & Catania, J. A. (1998). Sexual harassment,
sexual coercion, and HIV risk among US adults 18-49. AIDS & Behavior, 2,
33–40.
de Visser, R.O, Rissel, C.E., Richters, J. & Smith A.M.A. (2007) The impact of
sexual coercion on psychological, physical, and sexual well-being in a
representative sample of Australian women. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36,
676-686.
Laumann, E. O., Gagnon, J. H., Michael, R. T. & Michaels, S. (1994). The social
organization of sexuality: Sexual practices in the United States. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Silverman, J. G., Raj, A., Mucci, L. A., & Hathaway, J. E. (2001). Dating violence
against adolescent girls and associated substance use, unhealthy weight control,
sexual risk behavior, pregnancy, and suicidality. Journal of the American Medical
Association, 286, 572–579.
2] The methods section should clearly describe the origins of the various
measures (or whether they were constructed for this study) and should clearly
state how variables were combined - e.g. the combination of the three coercion
measures is only described in the results section.
3] More information is needed in relation to the pre-tests referred to on p.4. What
was done? With whom?
4] When claims are made about significant differences, the results of statistical
tests must be given - this is most notable in Table 3 and its accompanying text on
p.7.
5] The manuscript contains numerous spelling mistakes. It is not possible to
identify all of them here, but the authors would be well-advised to ask a person
with greater proficiency in English to proofread paper to identify and correct
spelling errors and to improve the quality of expression.
- Minor Essential Revisions
6] Descriptions of the methods and results should be written in the past tense
7] The authors should be careful when reporting their results to state the data
can only be generalised to married women - not all women, as is implied in the
4th line of the 1st paragraph of the discussion.
8] There should be some discussion of the fact that a cross-sectional survey
cannot provide information about causal associations between variables - e.g.
the finding on p.8 that women who had been sexually coerced perceived
themselves to have les power and perceived their husbands to exercise more
control.
9] All acronyms must be spelt out in full before they are employed.
10] The authors must ensure that all entries in the reference list contain all
required information.
- Discretionary Revisions
11] Some of the descriptive information in the text simply repeats data presented
in tables. In such cases, the in-text data can be deleted.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
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