Title: The relationship between aggressive behaviors of preschool children and the violence
against Iranian women in the COVID-19 pandemic
Version: 1 Date: 25 Apr 2022
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the invitation to review this manuscript. The following are my comments to the
authors:
1. The abstract, in-text citations, and references do not conform with the journal's format.
2. The first time COVID-19 appears in the manuscript should be written out.
3. This statement - "Domestic violence is one of the physical and mental health risks in this
crisis(Petrowski, Cappa, Pereira, Mason, & Daban, 2020)." -  in the first paragraph of the
background benefits from supporting it with the following reference:
Asagba, R. B., Noibi, O. W., & Ogueji, I. A. (2021). Gender Differences in Children’s
Exposure to Domestic Violence in Nigeria. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 1-4. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s40653-021-00386-6
4. There are grammatical issues in the manuscript. For instance (but not limited to): "While
violence against women has an impact on their physical and mental health, it may also has
an impact on children's social skills and behavioral issues later in life." - The authors should
extensively correct grammatical mistakes.
5. The last sentence in the first paragraph of the background section also benefits from the
suggested reference in my third comment.
6. Why do the authors believe that domestic violence is more common in developing countries
than in developed countries? This should be explained where it is stated in the manuscript.
7. The authors should maintain the usage of "COVID-19 pandemic" throughout their manuscript
and discard the usage of "COVID-19 epidemic"
8. The authors wrote in the background section - "Since the researchers could not find a
similar study, they decided to investigate the relationship between aggressive behavior in
preschool children and violence against Iranian women during the COVID-19 outbreak." -
Which researchers are being referred to here?
9. In the methods section, the authors wrote - "The present study is a descriptive correlational
study." - Can the authors provide an elaborate description of their study design to enhance
readability?
10. Why was Kerman (southeast of Iran) selected as the study setting? How is this linked to
the focus of the study?
11. Numbers less than 10 should be written out where appropriate in the manuscript.
12. Instead of writing 384 samples, the authors should consider writing 384 respondents formed
the sample.
13. statistical terms should be italicized. (For instance, but not limited to, Z, p, q, d.
14. There is more than one author of this manuscript but in some parts of the manuscript, it was
written that "The researcher uploaded..."
15. In the measures section, the authors should state sample items of the scales used and state if
the scales have been previously used with Iranian samples with appropriate references to endorse
this.
16. In the results section, the authors should also state the US dollar equivalent of 3-6 million
Tomans.
17. In the data analysis section, the authors stated that the only inferential statistics used was
Pearson r. But, reading the results section, the authors mentioned that they carried out an
independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA. This is contradictory. Hence, I suggest the
authors transparently state all inferential statistics used in their data analysis section.
18. It is unclear what hypotheses the authors stated and how it was informed by the literature
review. That said, the authors tested some hypotheses and presented the results in the results
section but failed to tell us how/where these hypotheses were stated in the background section
of the manuscript.
19. The tables do not conform with APA format.
20. In the first paragraph of the discussion section, the way this statement is presented makes
it unclear which citations support which statement - "While in the studies of Bonomi et al.
(2006) and Huria et al. (2005) the difference between the level of education, financial status and
violence against women was not significant(Huria, Deepti, Lajya, & Sunder, 2005; Thompson
et al., 2006), which may be due to the difference in the small sample size or different cultures
of the study population." - I suggest the authors re-write to enhance clarity. In fact, this pattern
of unclear citation was repeated in several parts of the discussion. The authors should please
address this.
21. The year is missing in this in-text citation - "(Pu & Rodriguez)"
22. What are the limitations of the study and directions for future research? These are missing
in the manuscript.
23. What are the implications of findings for practice in relation to governments/policymakers,
clinicians, and even the family as a whole?
24. What is the novel contribution of your study to the COVID-19 pandemic literature?