Title: Prevalence and factors associated with unintended pregnancy among adolescent girls and
young women in Sub-Saharan Africa, a multilevel analysis
Version: 1 Date: 19 Jul 2022
Reviewer's report:
I want to thank the Authors for the good study conducted. Though the findings are already
known, this study is still useful in many ways.
However, there are some major issues with the study I believe should be resolved to improve
the quality of the study. These have been listed below;
General Issues
1. There are so many grammatical errors that needs to be corrected. I will advice that authors
take turns to proof read the paper again.
2. The term adolescents in this study has been used wrongly in the study. How do you refer a 20
- 24 year old girl as an adolescent? In some cases in the paper it is even worse as the term was
changed to adolescent women. According to WHO, adolescents girls are females 10 - 19years.
If you are adding 20 - 24 years to your study, it changes to Adolescent girls and young women.
females 20 - 24 are termed young women.
Please read extensively on this and make the necessary changes in your paper to reflect these
if possible.
******This should also include a change in your study topic.****
3. Please stop referring Southern Africa as South Africa in the paper. The two are not the same.
Same applies to your figures and tables where these two have been used interchangeably.
4. Please be consistent with the spelling and use of "sub-Saharan Africa" in the study
5. The study should try and give us some country specific data, findings and discussions. Among
SSA countries, how do countries compare to each other and what specific lessons can those with
high prevalence learn from those with relatively low prevalence?
6. The study tried to use a general approach by boxing SSA into regions which is not helpful.
Global interventions and programs are all country specific and so inter/intra country specific
analysis and discussions could have helped.
Abstract
1.  prevalence of unintended pregnancy among ............ in Sub-Saharan Africa
2. In your conclusion, the recommendation or explanation on extramarital affairs is not clear,
especially how it relates to the study findings.
Background
1. Could you please compare the % decline of unintended pregnancy in SSA to other regions of
the world so that readers can appreciate the differences and why that of SSA is a problem?
2. Paragraph 4 line 4 and 5 sentence is hanging (Moreover..............)
3. Last paragraph sentence: state the data being used. ie, DHS
Methods
1. Please avoid using the word "included". You can replace it with "used" or "employed"
2. Check sentences and introduce "and" where necessary
3. Yes sampling procedure has been documented elsewhere but I believe it will be appropriate
if you also give some further details in your study so that readers don't have to abandon your
study in search of the other study to understand your methods.
4. Why are the country specific sampling and weighting data details omitted. This is very
important to help us appreciate your analysis.
5. **** I believe this study would have been more beneficial to literature if your study had
focused more on country specific details in SSA rather than just the regions. Data on the two
would have been better.****
6. Are you dealing with adolescents, young women, adolescent girls and young women or
women in this study? These terms are all different. Please refer to literature to guide you on the
appropriate term to be used for females aged 15 - 24 years. Define this term properly backed
by literature.
Results
1. Please stop interchanging Southern Africa with South Africa
2. Again, it would have been more beneficial to report on country specific situations especially
those findings that stands out.
Discussion
1.  Replace the word "tried"
2. Check sentences for grammatical errors.
3. Last sentence in paragraph 5 not clear
4. **** The discussion did not do well to the study. It would have been very beneficial if
Authors had discussed significant country specific cases. For example, in SSA which countries
are performing well, which countries are not performing well, what can we learn from those
performing well, are there specific programs and interventions in their countries that is helping
them to perform well, those countries not performing well what are the reasons, how close or far
are countries close to meeting the SDG's? Such discussions would have made the discussion rich.
5. Last sentence of strengths and limitations needs to be constructed well.
Conclusion
1. The conclusions especially the recommendations are shallow and too general. I believe this
is because the discussion lacks enough substance. The entire conclusion needs to be improved.
2. The part on extramarital affairs is not clear and I can't see its significant relationship with
the study findings.