Reviewer ’s report  
 
Title: Missed Opportunities f or Family Planning Couns elling among HIV -Positive Women 
Receiving HIV Care in Uganda  
 
Version: 0 Date: 06 Jan 2020  
 
Reviewer: E. I. Sianturi  
 
Reviewer's report:  
 
Please include all comments for the authors in this box rather than uploading your report as an 
attachment. Please only upload as attachments annotated versions of manuscripts, graphs, 
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Please overwrite this text when adding your comments to the authors.  
 
 
Dear co -authors,  
 
This is a paper that sought to assess a) determine the proportion of HIV -positive women enrolled 
in HIV care who missed family planning (FP) counselling; and b) assess if any association 
existed between FP counselling and current use of modern contraception to inform 
programming.  
 
One of the strengths is the use of wealth quint ile to address the subject matter. I found that your 
study is part of other previous study, and it is important to potential readers easy to follow this 
study. Some suggestions for improving the paper are made below.  
 
I suggest the authors get English lang uage service to help make most parts of the document more 
readable and understandable.  
 
 
Comments  
 
1. Please rewrite how you conducted this study. According to the sentence " Details about 
the survey methodology have been published elsewhere" in line 128 of the methods 
section, I suggest to add 2 sentences to describe your methods.  I think it will not be 
redundant for your study instead of helping to understand.  
 
2. Can the authors provide details on the data collection process and how they ensured that 
it was standardized?  
 
3. Can you explain more how you categorized wealth quintile. There is something missing 
about this. You can add appendix to give some example and making your paper is more 
understandable.  
4. How was the informed consent obtained to ensure that the clients don't feel coerced by 
the health care workers to respond?  
 
5. I don't understand your table 2. You write the number and the percentage but it is difficult 
to follow. I can give you example in table 1 you mentioned aged group 15 -24 year: 138 ( 
57.5). How you got the percentage of this number? Your table made me confused. Please 
revise the table  
 
6. In method section you excluded condom in the final m odel because it tended to 
overestimate the modern contraception? How you were sure that this method is not 
reliable as a method of contraception if not used consistently and correctly. Please add 
reference about your statement.  
 
Are the methods appropriate and well  described?  
If not, please specify what is required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Does the work include the necessary controls?  
If not, please specify which controls are required in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are the conclusions drawn adequat ely supported by the data shown?  
If not, please explain in your comments to the authors.  
 
Yes 
 
Are you able to assess any statistics in the manus cript or would you recommend an 
additional statistical review?  
If an additional statistical review is recommended , please speci fy what aspects require further 
assessment in your comments to the editors.  
 
I am able to assess the statistics  
 
Quality of written English  
Please indicate the quality of language in the manuscript:  
 
Needs some language corrections before being published  
 
Declaration of competing interests  
Please complete a declaration of competing interests, considering the following questions:  
 
1.  Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, f ees, funding, or salary 
from an organisation that may in an y way gain or lose financial ly from the 
publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?  
2.  Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation t hat may in any way gain or 
lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the 
future?  
 
3.  Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents  relating to the content 
of the manuscript?  
 
4.  Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an organization 
that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of the manuscript?  
 
5.  Do you have any other financial competing interests?  
 
6.  Do you have any non -financial competing interests in relation to this paper?  
 
If you can answer no to al l of the above, write 'I declare that I have  no competin g interests' 
below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.  
 
'I declare that I have no competing interests'  
 
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