Reviewer's report
Title:Behind the Silence of Harmony: Risk Factor Patterns for Physical and
Sexual Violence among Women in Rural Indonesia
Version: 1Date:29 June 2011
Reviewer: Bosiljka Djikanovic
Reviewer's report:
• The idea of this paper is very good, study is methodologically sound, and
authors provided good discussion that is sensitive for cultural differences.
However, the manuscript would benefit very much from English academic writing
editing in order to improve flow, readability and better comprehension of the
content of the paper. Below are some concrete suggestions for authors' attention.
Major Compulsory Revision
ABSTRACT
• Method: too complicated and unclear
• Results: “less common prevalent risk factors such as (…)” it is not clear what
this means, as well as “applicable to a small group of men” in this context. Also,
how attitudes and norms are associated with gender inequalities, it is not clear
here. Is “majority of 59%” statistically significant? Which proportion you consider
“majority”? In my opinion, 59% is just slightly more than half, but not majority.
INTRODUCTION
• pg.3, 1st paragraph, last sentence: it is not clear what these ranges stand for
(12.9 -48.7% and 3.1-29%)
METHOD
• pg.4, Study Site and Sample: Who were the women enrolled in the longitudinal
pregnancy cohort study? What were inclusion/exclusion criteria?
• pg.5, Variables and Measures: WHO questionnaire is a way longer. Does it
mean that just these sections you have mentioned were applied?
RESULTS
• Table 1. Women’s age, why just two intervals are given? Why age of 35 is
chosen as a line? I suggest presenting women’s age in at least three fully defined
age intervals (from “x” yrs to “y” yrs)
• pg.7, second paragraph, first sentence starting with “A majority of women (…)”
is not clear, and somehow inconsistent with the abstract and also Table 2. In the
second sentence, you mentioned “less educated husbands”. Please specify what
is meant by “less” educated. Is that in comparison to their partner (women), or
less than highly educated?
• pg.7, third paragraph (and also pg.8) Make sure you interpreted odds ratios
correctly (being aware of the direction you coded dependent variable, what
stands for 0 and what for 1). Looking at the Table 2, here are different patterns
for physical and sexual violence, please amend for more explanation in already
existing paragraph.
DISCUSSION
• In general, authors provided very interesting, culturally sensitive discussion.
However, there are several things that have to be improved, upon the evidences
from this study.
• First sentence miss the subject (“younger and less educated” who?)
• There are no results about attitudes and geographical area (poor areas) in the
Results section or in tables, while they appear here in Discussion
• It is not clear how “small group of men” is defined, what makes them small
• Pg.8, second para, first sentence: it is not clear and it confuse readers: is
Purworejo site the only one where the survey was conducted? If yes, there is no
need to emphasize here again, if not, please explain how the location is related
to the results you get.
• Pg.8, third sentence, starting with “Given (…)”, is not clear.
• Pg.9, third para, first sentence “family problems (…) with outsiders” please
make sure that you used English language correctly
• Pg.9, fourth para, first sentence: please elaborate more what were your findings
in terms of attitudes and violence
• Pg. 10, second para should be written more clearly. I advice you to repeat
shortly the main findings (percentages, odds ratios etc.)
• Pg.10, second para, the sentence “This is in accordance with WHO (…) what
are acceptable reasons (…) and what are not” has to be clarified, perhaps even
back in the Results section. Currently, there are no information about which
particular attitude constitutes these 8%, or “what is not” acceptable reason to
refuse sex, from women’s point of view.
• Pg.10, Limitation of the study: apart from pregnancy, are there any other
characteristics of women in your sample that might be relevant for comparisons
with other WHO results? Are they all married/living with partner now as well?
Minor revision
• Authors might consider to amend discussion for the most recent results on risk
factors for experiencing IPV analyzed for all WHO-Multi Country Study sites
(published this year in BMC Public Health), and also published studies from
Bangladesh and Serbia.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests