Reviewer's report
Title:Awareness of Pap testing and factors associated with intent to undergo
Pap testing by level of sexual experience in unmarried university students in
Korea: results from an online survey
Version:7Date:17 April 2014
Reviewer: Susanne Blödt
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript of Hae Won Kim has improved a lot and has gained in clarity.
However to submit the paper revision is necessary:
Major Compulsory revision
1. Measures: “5 cervical cancer prevention practices: Abstinence from sexual
intercourse until marriage.” The risk of HPV infection is higher for women who
have had more sexual partner. I doubt that marriage is a warranty for having less
or only one sexual partner. Can you explain why you assume that marriage
protects against cervical cancer?
2. Measures: .….awareness of Pap testing was assessed at baseline and in the
result section: the baseline results for the opinion….
I assume that baseline describe the short time before the information about
cervical cancer prevention was given to the survey participants. It’s somehow
confusing because in general it describes the first measurement point. I suggest
to avoid the word baseline in this context and to describe only the situation.
3. “…which is similar to the actual proportion of female university students” Do
you mean that 42% out of all students are female or that 42% of female students
are attending universities which are located in the Seoul and Gyung-gi
metropolitan areas? Please could you clarify this point.
4. “Thus, there was an even distribution of participants across regions and
majors” What do you mean with an even distribution e.g. 40.8% of the students
were attending universities in the Seoul and Gyung-gi areas.
5. Results table 2: “Analysis of awareness of cervical cancer prevention…..that
there were also significant differences in awareness of the importance of….”
Please can you clarify in the text what was the difference between groups
6. Discussion: How did you come to the conclusion that “students in the present
study were less confident regarding the HPV vaccination with a score of 76.46
(table 2)? Can you explain why you know that “this difference reflects the high
cost of HPV vaccination”?
Minor Essential Revisions
7. Measure: “The stigma and shame factors accounted for 85.62%.....(Table 2)”. I
think this refers to table 1. In table 2 you present “Socio-demographic
characteristics and awareness of the Pap-testing……”.
8. ……after giving this information (i.e. tip). The word is confusing- I suggest to
use the word “information”
9. The five cervical cancer prevention practices were assessed on a scale
ranging from 0 to 100. Were the figures of the scale labeled e.g. 0 =not at all, 100
= very important? If so can you mention this?
10. Statistical analysis: Missing values: It is great that you hadn’t any missing
variables. I suggest mentioning this important result. Do you have an
explanation, e.g were all fields in the online questionnaire mandatory?
11. Results: Is Gyung-gi and Kyung-gi the same? If so it would help to write the
geographic names identically.
12. In table 2 you start with socio-demographic characteristics, followed by the
awareness of Pap testing and cervical cancer prevention. It would be helpful for
the reader if the text follows the same structure.
13. Table 2: Monthly allowance: What does Korean won x 10.000 mean?
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.