Title: Using Delphi method to develop Chinese women’s cervical cancer screening intention
scale based on planned behavior theory
Version: 3 Date: 30 Oct 2022
Reviewer:  Francesca De Nard
Reviewer's report:
Dear authors,
I greatly appreciate your amendments to the manuscript, which I believe contribute to
communicate effectively the solid methodology of the research, and add more context to aid the
readers’ interpretation of your results.
However, the manuscript may benefit for minor revisions.
In my opinion, it still needs to be improved in the use of scientific English. Professional
proofreading would be helpful.
For example:
Line 52: ‘due to the early stage of cervical cancer is hidden’ - ‘Since, during the early stage,
cervical cancer is asymptomatic’ may be clearer.
Line 56: ‘as a preventable...’ - ‘as cervical cancer is a preventable...’ may be clearer.
line 57: ‘and treat them’ - ‘and allow treatment’ is technically correct
Line 60: ‘because to efficient screening programs, the incidence of cervical cancer...’ -
‘Population based screening programs, as long as HPV vaccination programs, contributed to the
decrease of the incidence of...’ may be clearer and includes the contribution of HPV vaccination
programs.
Line 70: ‘willingness to cervical cancer screening’ - ‘will to participate in cervical cancer
screening’ is clearer.
Line 75: the meaning of ‘active’ is not clear to me.
Line 130: ‘each paper had two screenings. two researchers performed the title/abstract screening
independently’. The sentences regarding T/A screening are redundant. How were disagreements
resolved?
Line 157: the whole description of the questionnaire (and also other sentences within the paper)
is confusive because verbs are used in present and past tense alternatively; past tense would be
clearer.
Line 168: ‘and titles are among’ - ‘are collected among’?
Line 169: This sentence is unclear to me.
Line 205: in this paragraph, the inclusion of developing and developed cities is repeated.Table
2, line 243: In the tables’ description, the readers would find contradicting information: ‘after
each step of the Delphi process’ ‘(after the first round)’, and then in the subtitles ‘Delphi round
two’. I suggest the authors to choose only one informative description.
In addition, some issues deserve to be addressed.
Line 61: The terminology ‘developed-developing countries’ should be replaced with the current
conventional terminology ‘high-middle-low income countries’.
Line 120: ‘The subjective norms section adds..’ I don’t get the meaning of this sentence. The
final model you have developed do cover injunctive norms, but do not cover descriptive norms.
This issue could be a limit: I think it should be mentioned in the limits’ section.
Line 150: I don’t think there is a need for affirming that the modified Delphi approach is
appropriate. If the authors wish to add this sentence, they may explain why the modification of
the protocol is appropriate. For example, the possibility of adding/modifying items is crucial for
the development of a new scale.
Round 1 and Round 2 paragraphs: I think it more logical to find the data regarding participants’
response rate for each round at the beginning of these paragraphs.
Table 2, table 3, main text: ‘Behavior attitudes’ might be replaced with ‘attitude towards
behavior’