Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Effect of nutrition education on iodine deficiency disorders and iodized
salt intake in south west Ethiopian women: a cluster randomized controlled trial
Version: 
0 
Date: 
24 Aug 2020
Reviewer's report:
The authors state that this is a randomised controlled trial and it is good to see
that the authors have used the CONSORT checklist. Two aspects of the
CONSORT guidelines need to be revised in this paper (17a and 17b). 
Firstly, it is not appropriate to test for differences between randomly allocated
groups at baseline (any differences, if they do exist, is due to chance). Thus the
p-values for Table 1 should be deleted from the table. See CONSORT statement
or paper "Testing for baseline differences in randomised controlled trials: an
unhealthy research behaviour that is hard to eradicate"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310023/
In presenting the results of such a trial, the authors need to provide the mean
difference (95% CI) for each of the primary outcomes, after adjustment for
baseline values. Indeed, presenting the mean difference and associated 95%CI
means that the p-value is not required, but more importantly, this allows the
reader to see the magnitude of the difference between the two groups. Thus, the
text of the results section needs to be altered, Table 2 changed, and this data
included in the abstract as well.
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Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
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No
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from apparent manipulation?
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