JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence, determinants and clinical correlates of vitamin D deficiency
among women of child bearing age in Lahore, Pakistan
Version:2Date:2 June 2015
Reviewer: Zulf MUGHAL
Reviewer's report:
Prevalence, determinants and clinical correlates of vitamin D deficiency among
women of child-bearing age in Lahore, Pakistan. By Kashaf Junaid
Thank you very much for asking me to review this manuscript and apologies for
the delay in submission of my review.
Authors of this manuscript undertook a cross-sectional study to determine the
vitamin D status, determined by serum 25OHD in women of child-bearing age in
Lahore, Pakistan, and also determined environmental and genetic determinants
of vitamin D status. They also determined whether low vitamin D levels were
associated with symptoms of body ache & bone pain. Finally they undertook the
sensitivity and specificity analysis to find if vitamin D deficiency by testing for
hypocalcaemia or raised serum alkaline phosphatase concentration.
From their results, Junaid & colleagues concluded that vitamin D deficiency is
common among healthy adult females in Lahore, Pakistan, with risk factors being
poor literacy levels, decreased sun exposure, lack of multivitamin intake and
vitamin D binding protein genotype.
Specific comments:
Introduction:
• Did authors have pre-specified hypotheses that were tested?
Methods:
• How was the sample size of the study estimated?
• Authors state that, “A detailed interview was conducted to gather details about
participants lifestyle and social status”:
a) The rationale for obtaining a dietary history is not clear. Was it to estimate
dietary vitamin D or calcium intake?
b) More details need to be provided about time participants spent outdoors and
indoors. Was this based on previously validated sunshine exposure score?
c) History of body ache / pain. This assessment appears to be somewhat vague.
Is it based on a validated pain score? It is a shame that plasma PTH
concentration was not measured, as symptoms of vitamin D deficiency only arise
when plasma PTH levels are elevated.
• Inter & intra assay CVs for serum 25OHD assays should be stated.
Reviewer's report
Title:High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among women of child-bearing age
in Lahore Pakistan, associating with lack of sun exposure and illiteracy
Version:3Date:2 August 2015
Reviewer: Shelley Gorman
Reviewer's report:
The authors have addressed my initial concerns.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Pre-Invasive And Invasive Disease In Women With A Cytological Diagnosis
Of High-Grade Lesion And High Grade Lesion Can Not Exclude Microinvasion
Version:2Date:16 November 2014
Reviewer: Ruud LM Bekkers
Reviewer's report:
This is a well written and executed research project to investigate the different
implications of a HSIL report or HSIL cannot exclude micro invasion from cervical
cytology.
major compulsory revisions:
1. the discussion lacks sufficient references to the literature. Many articles report
on the number of LSIL, HSIL, carcinoma histology in case of HSIL cytology, so
this has to be added.
2. the authors suggest a more invasive approach in case of HSIL Micro. What is
meant with this more invasive approach? and is it indeed advisable, or should
you be less invasive by only taking some biopsies first to get a proper histolgical
diagnosis. also this needs to be discussed with literature references in the
discussion.
Minor points: the english may be improved by a native english speaker.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
none
Reviewer's report
Title:Pre-Invasive And Invasive Disease In Women With A Cytological Diagnosis
Of High-Grade Lesion And High Grade Lesion Can Not Exclude Microinvasion
Version:4Date:2 February 2015
Reviewer: Rebecca Landy
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
n/a
Minor Essential Revisions
1. If you are going to select the cut-offs for age from a ROC-curve, it is necessary
to make sure that they are appropriate for the desired purpose, which I don’t
think they are in this situation. The selected cut-offs split the women with
HSIL-micro into groups of size 1, 4 and 42 – it is difficult to place much trust in
results based on 1 and 4 women in the HSIL-micro group. Age categories which
split the data for both HSIL and HSIL-micro women more equally make the
results more reliable. Your previous response to comment 8 (“The age categories
for Table 3 and 4 are not sensible, as they do not split the HSIL-micro women
(42/47 are in the 35+ category).”) explains why you chose the categories, but did
not address the fact that the cut-offs do not result in reasonable numbers in each
category.
2. Not everything in the abstract is mentioned in the main paper (for example,
cervical cancer is the 3rd most common cancer in Brazil).
3. ETZ, AIS, EJC should be spelt out before first use (in the text, not just as
footnotes to a table).
4. Please name the confounders adjusted for in the statistical analysis
paragraph.
5. In the last paragraph of the discussion, you say that the cPR was 5.45 for
women under 25 – no cPR was calculated for women under 25, and 5.45 is the
overall cPR.
Discretionary Revisions
1. In the last paragraph of the discussion, you say the cPR for women 35+ was
similar to the overall aPR – this may be a result of age 35+ being the baseline
category when the age variable was adjusted for – if so you would expect the
cPR for women 35+ to be the most similar to the aPR, and it is an artifact of the
analysis, rather than something to comment on.
Minor issues not for publication
1. In the statistical analysis paragraph, the test is a Student’s t-test (there is
currently a typo), and there are words missing from this sentence so it currently
doesn't make sense – Student’s t-test was used to do what to numerical
variables?
2. It is more usual to present results in order of increasing age when split by age,
rather than decreasing age, as in Tables 3 and 4.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Pre-Invasive And Invasive Disease In Women With A Cytological Diagnosis
Of High-Grade Lesion And High Grade Lesion Can Not Exclude Microinvasion
Version:4Date:9 February 2015
Reviewer: Ruud LM Bekkers
Reviewer's report:
I have read the revised manuscript.
I still do think the discussion is too weak on this subject. Even as the goal of the
authors was to compare HSIL to HSIL-Micro in Brasil, a proper discussion
regarding prevalence of (pre)-invasion in their population is warrented and would
make the manuscript more valuable.
Additionally, I notice that the conclusion in the abstract has not changed
regarding a more aggressive approach in HSIL -Micro, although this has now
been explained in the manuscript. I would suggest to use the conclusion of the
manuscript also for the abstract.
I also notice that the authors have difficulty with the remark of the other reviewer
that this is a selected population, and not just a sample out of mass screening in
the population.If they persist in stating this a screening population, than they
have to comment on screening advise and attendance in their region. I suppose
this is an underscreened population, resulting in a high prevalence of invasive
disease, and not a screened population.
Finally the English has not improved yet, indeed, the added parts are even
worse.
If the journal will correct the English than this is not appoint of concern, but if the
authors will do it as they state in their cover letter, than this needs to be corrected
before acceptance.
Reviewer's report
Title:Analysis of the usage of absorbent materials and help-seeking behavior of
women with stress urinary incontinence in Poland.
Version:2Date:9 December 2014
Reviewer: Bradford Fenton
Reviewer's report:
Review: Analysis of the usage of absorbent materials and help-seeking behavior
of
women with stress urinary incontinence in Poland.
This is a study of how often women with SUI use continence products. It is a
retrospective study using questionnaires to determine if there is a relationship
between how long the patient has had SUI symptoms and Stamey SUI score. It
evaluates lifestyle modification based on SUI symptoms, and demonstrates
findings pretty much consistent with what has been demonstrated in other
literature. Although the POP-Q was used to evaluate these patients, no report of
these findings is included.
Overall this is a very modest study from which only modest conclusions can be
made. SUI seems to be very similar in Polish women and American women. This
prediction is not really med in the introduction, and only slightly commented upon
in the Conclusion. This manuscript will need to be improved in several areas to
justify publication.
First, the introduction needs to make a better case for why the use of absorbent
materials in SUI is an important issue (line 69).
The purpose of a descriptive study is hypothesis generation, and no hypothesis
based on these results is presented in the Discussion. The authors need to
reconsider the importance of their findings and come up with a testable
hypothesis based on what they did here.
Most of this information seems to be well known, they will need to relate the
subjective patient reports to some objective findings, such as the POP-Q.
Some other issues include:
Line 35 What>which
Line 38: possessive needed.
Line 75 no comma
Note that this is pure SUI only, no mixed
Why were only 147 of 420 assessed? The selection method for the 147 women
from the cohort of 420 needs to be specified. This may make a substantial
difference in the generalizability of the outcomes.
There is no effort to determine an appropriate sample size or power estimation.
The Methods should specify why they thought this would be an adequate number
of subjects.
Line 127: ambulatory center
Line 135: significant association: data not shown
Absorbent materials: continence pads is probably a better, more searchable
MESH term.
Reviewer's report
Title:Analysis of the usage of absorbent materials and help-seeking behavior of
women with stress urinary incontinence in Poland.
Version:2Date:5 June 2015
Reviewer: Katrin Lang
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
Please provide if you have the number/proportion of subjects who refused to
participate. This is important as it could have led to biases when generalising to
population. Would be good to compare the included/excluded by main
parametres.
In the Results: please try not to repeat all the numbers that are presnted in
tables.
Lines 118-119: "The distribution...." please delete the sentences as this has been
said above. Or move it to the beginning of this section.
In the Discuccion, when referring to OR's from other studies, please also provide
the 95%CI's.
Minor Essential Revisions
"Negative urine culture" - please give defintion or criteria
Line 120 "Our patients" please change to "study subjects"
line 127 please change to "disease had been a problem" as currently is
grammatically incorrect.
Tables: please provide one decimal place throughout (percentages, SD, time in
years).
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
No competing ineterests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of sexual coercion and its association with unwanted
pregnancies among young pregnant females in Kampala, Uganda: A
cross-sectional study.
Version:1Date:4 May 2015
Reviewer: Pranitha Maharaj
Reviewer's report:
Prevalence of sexual coercion and its association with unwanted pregnancies 2
among young pregnant females in Kampala, Uganda: A cross-sectional study.
This is a very interesting and relevant topic that is in line with the aims of the
journal.
In the abstract it would be useful to outline the exact methods used for the
quantitative and qualitative component of the study.
In the introduction there should be more discussion about the definition of sexual
coercion. Do the authors have more statistics on sexual coercion in Uganda?
Why is this an important topic for Uganda?
At the moment the definition of variables reads like a laundry. This section needs
some restructuring.
There are some typographical and grammatical errors that need to be corrected
before submission.
How were the women selected for the qualitative interviews? What is the
sampling strategy that was used?
With regard to the types of coercion does this refer to the qualitative data or
quantitative data? If it is quantitative survey then it should go earlier.
I would also like to suggest that the authors avoid the use of ‘many’, ‘few’ and
‘several’ and instead consider giving us a number when discussing the results.
The author/s have an incredibly rich source of data which appear to have been
glossed over, with a number of quotations. These data would be a lot more
useful if they were placed in some kind of context. In addition, a table of themes
would be good or some sort of conceptual framework to help the reader see the
overall themes.
Consider some limitations of the data especially the dependent variable.
If possible I would also like to see more recent literature (post 2010).
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Reviewer's report
Title:Factors associated with Haemoglobin levels among Bangladeshi pregnant
women
Version:3Date:24 April 2014
Reviewer: rakesh ps
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions
1. Description of methodology is grossly inadequate and by looking at this much,
it seems weak.
2. Analysis was grossly inadequate to reach a conclusion
3. Conclusions are premature and are not supported by data and analysis.
4. There are lots of limitations in this study and none of them have been
mentioned.
5. Plenty of grammatical and language errors
Setting: The study is done among pregnant mothers attending a clinic. More
details about the setting is required. “The subjects therefore, represent
subgroups of Bangladeshi pregnant women” is not justified.
Study population: are all the antenatal mothers attending the clinics were
included in the study? How many attended the clinic? How you selected the
mothers? What were your inclusion criteria? Have you excluded anybody from
this study?
At what gestation were the hemoglobin checked. This is very important. Is it
during first visit or any visit?
What method was used to detect hemoglobin?
It is premature to conclude by doing this analysis. Inferences were not
appropriate.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Factors associated with Haemoglobin levels among Bangladeshi pregnant
women
Version:5Date:24 July 2014
Reviewer: rakesh ps
Reviewer's report:
major compulsory revision
1. Wrong interpretation of findings.
2. Wrongly done analysis (logistic regression)
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Reviewer's report
Title:Factors associated with Haemoglobin levels among Bangladeshi pregnant
women
Version:5Date:28 July 2014
Reviewer: Nuwan D Wickramasinghe
Reviewer's report:
- Major Compulsory Revisions
1. In this revised version, authors have done regression analysis. Thus, in results
section (both in abstract as well as in the main text) the results of the regression
analysis have to be mentioned (not the results of the Chi squared tests).
And the associations can be described together with the direction of association
(as Odds Ratios have been calculated) rather than just mentioning the raw
variables such as age, education, living area etc. However, should make sure to
mention the significant values of the regression analysis (not the results of the
Chi squared test).
2. While interpreting the results (ie. The OR values), the correct terminology to
use is “likelihood”, not “risk”.
3. In the reference section, there are inconsistencies. Authors should adhere to
one referencing style as per the journal guidelines.
- Minor Essential Revisions
Overall
1. Despite highlighted in the previous review, throughout the article the authors
have used different spellings for the most important variables of the study, viz
“anaemia” and “Haemoglobin”, which have to be corrected promptly.
2. There are grammatical as well as spelling errors throughout the article which
have to be promptly addressed.
Methods
3. Study population - It’s not correct to mention, “The study population consisted
of 224 pregnant women”. Because, 224 is the sample size, not the total number
of subjects in the population.
4. Sample size – The formula has to be corrected as,
n = Z2 p.q / r2
And also mention the prevalence value which was used for the calculation.
(Though 32% was mentioned in the reply to reviews, it wasn’t mentioned in the
main text)
5. Sampling technique – Is it purposive or consecutive?
6. Statistical Analysis – “A significance level of 0.05 was considered as proper”
This is not a valid statement.
Results
7. When presenting the results in some instances only the absolute number or
the mere percentage was mentioned.(both the absolute number and the
percentage should be given)
8. “Mean (+/-SD)” should be corrected as “Mean (SD)” , both in the text as well
as in numerical values.
9. In the tables, the p value for each variable has to be mentioned rather than just
mentioning that it is not significant. Together with the p values the Chi values
could have been provided. Though the authors have mentioned they have
corrected this, they have not done that in the text.
10. As a limitation of the study, the inability to generalize the findings has to be
highlighted (as a non probability sampling technique has been used).
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Factors associated with Haemoglobin levels among Bangladeshi pregnant
women
Version:5Date:29 July 2014
Reviewer: Judith Stephens
Reviewer's report:
Most issues raised have been resolved except:
2.3
Blood sample collection is addressed but not satisfactory. The method used to
determine is not appropriate. Whole blood is used for Hb. Glysated Hb is used to
determine the A1c as pertains to blood glucose levels. Needs to be rewritten.
(MCR)
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
'I declare that I have no competing interests' below. If your reply is yes to any,
please give details below.
Reviewer's report
Title:Management of abortion complications at a rural hospital in Uganda: A
quality assessment by criterion-based audit
Version:1Date:27 December 2014
Reviewer: Marge Berer
Reviewer's report:
My report is attached. I have not followed this format above but I have gone
through the paper and made comments re each section and specific
lines/sentences.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Not suitable for publication unless extensively edited
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Socio-Economic and Cultural Vulnerabilities to Cervical Cancer and
Challenges Faced by Patients attending Care at Tikur Anbessa Hospital: A Cross
Sectional and Qualitative Study
Version:3Date:10 September 2014
Reviewer: Danie C Nnadi
Reviewer's report:
The article was detailed and informative. It is also relevant to the course of
cancer management in Africa in general. It however contains some unnecessary
details. it needs to be reviewed in a much more compressed form. My other
comments are found in the text.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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 interest
Reviewer's report
Title:Socio-Economic and Cultural Vulnerabilities to Cervical Cancer and
Challenges Faced by Patients attending Care at Tikur Anbessa Hospital: A Cross
Sectional and Qualitative Study
Version:3Date:25 September 2014
Reviewer: Lucy Kivuti-Bitok
Reviewer's report:
This information has been sent as an attachment
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Socio-Economic and Cultural Vulnerabilities to Cervical Cancer and
Challenges Faced by Patients attending Care at Tikur Anbessa Hospital: A Cross
Sectional and Qualitative Study
Version:5Date:17 January 2015
Reviewer: Lucy Kivuti-Bitok
Reviewer's report:
As attached
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Socio-Economic and Cultural Vulnerabilities to Cervical Cancer and
Challenges Faced by Patients attending Care at Tikur Anbessa Hospital: A Cross
Sectional and Qualitative Study
Version:5Date:14 June 2015
Reviewer: Golam Hossain
Reviewer's report:
No comments
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:"I am alone and isolated": A qualitative study of experiences of women
living with genital fistula in Uganda
Version:1Date:16 March 2015
Reviewer: Lorena Binfa
Reviewer's report:
In general this is a very interesting and well written article. I consider that this
manuscript needs some minor essential revisions.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests