Title: Women’s and male partners’ socio-demographic and economic characteristics associated
with contraceptive decision making in Nigeria
Version: 2 Date: 23 Jul 2022
Reviewer:  Bola Lukman Solanke
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript examined maternal and partner correlates of contraceptive decision-making in
Nigeria. This is an important family planning issue in the country due to the persistence of
patriarchy in Nigerian communities. The study was well conceptualized but poorly executed.
The lack of a theory or analytical model to underpin the study affected the selection of the
explanatory variables, which affected the intellectual content of the manuscript. Also, some
explanatory variables such as ethnicity and religion were not appropriately operationalized. In
addition, only one model of the multinomial regression model was fitted. This did not provide
an opportunity for statistical control in the study. The findings were pretty reported, but there
were some inappropriate results presentations. The discussion could be improved upon. The
study raises no serious ethical issues. I have no evidence that the study is plagiarized work.
The author's writing style is satisfactory, but the author needs to be consistent in using either
American or British spellings. The manuscript in its current version needs substantial revision,
including language editing. Specific comments on the sections are outlined below:
Title
The title needs revision. Including “Implications for achieving sustainable development goals
5 and 3 in Nigeria” is redundant. The author should delete it, add a goal to the objective, and
then address the concern in the discussion. The author may wish to consider a revision such as
Maternal and partner socio-demographic correlates of contraceptive decision-making in Nigeria.
Partnered women of reproductive age could be addressed in the Methods section.
Abstract
The abstract is informative but needs revision: the knowledge gap in the background section
should align appropriately with the title; the method section is scanty; the prevalence presented
in the result section is more than 100%, and the use of RRR suffice; there should be a conclusion
based on the objectives before providing recommendations in the conclusion section.
Background
a. The author should start the section by describing the outcome variable and providing
information on why it is a problem worthy of investigation. The points are already in the section
authors, however, need to reorganize the section
b. The two objectives could be collapsed since both describe correlates. In addition, the author
needs to state the ultimate goal of the study
c. The author needs to identify existing policies or strategies that the findings could inform
d. The study should be guided by an appropriate theory or analytical framework
Methods
a) The data source section needs at least one citation
b) Delete the section on ethical considerations. This is well-captured under the ethical approval
and consent to participate section of the declarations
c) Outcome variable: the author should describe the variable consistently. Is it contraceptive
decision-making or contraceptive decision taker? On line 18 of page 6, change ‘discarded’ to
‘excluded.’
d) Author should have focused on the major ethnic group of Hausa/Fulani, Igbo, and Yoruba
while excluding minority groups. It is offensive to describe separate nationalities as ‘Others’.
In addition, this group of ‘others’ have different socio-cultural practices that may affect their
perception and utilization of contraceptives
e) The use of RRR is sufficient. Using ARRR is bogus
f) Data analysis: only one model was fitted. More variables should be identified to give room
for statistical control in the analysis
Results
a. Line 20, page 9, 23% is less than a quarter not less than half, Line 1 of page10, 29% is less
than on-third not less than half, Line 4 on page 10, 72% is the majority not more than half, etc
b. More variables will make the results to be robust