Title: Intimate partner violence against women among contraceptive users at a primary health
care setting in Southern Ethiopia: a facility-based cross-sectional study
Version: 3 Date: 29 Aug 2024
Reviewer's report:
"PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS:
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses one or several
testable research questions? (Brief or other article types: is there a clear objective?)
No - there are minor issues
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for
the objective?
No - there are minor issues
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with sufficient technical rigor to
allow confidence in the results?
Yes - experiments and analyses were performed appropriately
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
Not sure - I am not able to assess the statistics in this study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not
overstated?
No - there are major issues
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Has the author addressed your concerns sufficiently
for you to now recommend the work as a technically sound contribution? If not, can further
revisions be made to make the work technically sound?
Maybe - with major revisions
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: The authors have addressed some of the comments but not to a
satisfactory extent.
This is a potentially interesting paper but does need some further work. The introduction sets out
the problem on IPV globally and in Ethiopia. The introduction then includes some discussion
about how women's experience of IPV is linked with low use of contraceptives (the word 'use'
is missing in this sentence). The paper then returns to the factors that lead to IPV based on other
research. The end of the introduction then states that the research for the paper is to determine the
magnitude of IPV amongst women who use contraceptives. Here, and in the discussion, it is not
clear why this is being investigated. That is why the magnitude of IPV amongst contraceptive
users is being determined rather than the use of contraceptives by women experiencing IPV. The
introduction could be improved by some editing, especially lines 1 - 11 on page 4.
The results section is reasonably clear but has too many headings. The heading 'Community's
attitudes to old fashioned gender norms' needs to be changed. Surely it is women's attitudes to
gender-norms that has been measured. In relation to this there is no discussion previous to this as
to what these gender norms are and how they are measured, and what is meant by 'old-fashioned'.
The discussion mainly focuses on comparing the results of this study with other studies in
Africa, but does not really delve into what is learnt by these findings. What does this information
inform in terms of policy? Further to this, how do these results compare to women who are not
contraceptive users. i.e., what do they tell us about IPV and contraceptive use in Ethiopia?
Overall, the paper could do with some editing. The term 'three-fourth' rather than 75% is not
common usage for statisticians. The conclusion has some examples of poor English, such as
'Although women education has reverse...' and 'women's education is remained...' Addressing
these issues will greatly improve the paper.
Points 1 and 4 - The academic language still needs improving.
Point 5 – The discussion still needs improving.
REQUESTED REVISIONS:
The authors need to explain in more detail what the study was designed in this way - to explore
IPV amongst contraceptive users rather than contraception amongst women who experience
IPV. They also need to draw out lessons learned from these findings that could inform policy
and health care provision for women experiencing IPV and requiring contraception
ADDITIONAL REQUESTS/SUGGESTIONS:
Consider some of the conclusions as to why men perpetuate IPV when using drugs and alcohol.
There is some implication of excusing men for their behaviour whilst under the influence of
alcohol and drugs"