Title: Knowledge and beliefs about oocyte cryopreservation for medical and social reasons in
female students: A Cross-Sectional Survey
Version: 0 Date: 08 Mar 2023
Reviewer's report:
"PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS:
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses a testable research
question(s) (brief or other article types: is there a clear objective)?
Yes - there is a clear objective
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for
the objective?
No - there are minor issues
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with technical rigor to allow
confidence in the results?
No - there are minor issues
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
No - there are issues with the statistics in the study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not
overstated?
No - there are minor issues
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Is the current version of this work technically
sound? If not, can revisions be made to make the work technically sound?
Probably - with minor revisions
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: I read carefully the manuscript ""Knowledge and beliefs about
oocyte cryopreservation for medical and social reasons in female students"". Overall, the
manuscript has a clear rationale, and the data analysis is robust enough to draw a firm conclusion.
Nevertheless, I suggested some minor revisions to improve the article's quality.
REQUESTED REVISIONS:
I would recommend to take into account the following suggestions:
- The manuscript would benefit from a language revision by a native speaker, in order to improve
grammar and style.
- Introduction: the authors should discuss the opportunity to offer oocyte cryopreservation
in women affected by endometriosis, especially in case of bilateral endometriomas and/or
before surgery for advanced stages, taking into account the current challenges due to ovarian
stimulation these patients (authors may refer to: PMID: 31755673; PMID: 32873492).
- Methods: the collection of informed consent by online application, without any doctor-patient
counselling, without any signature, raises serious concerns about its validity.
- Methods: the authors should clearly report inclusion and exclusion criteria.
- Methods: the authors should clearly define primary and secondary outcomes (since the sample
size should have been calculated on the primary outcome of the study).
- Methods: authors declared that “The students who completed the survey had an opportunity
to enter a lottery to win one of 20 free 15 GB internet voucher”; although this is perfectly fine,
legal and ethical, the authors should discuss this point among the limitations of the study, as a
potential selection bias (participants may have been more prone to start and complete the survey,
since they could win the lottery).
- Methods: does this study conform with the Checklist for Reporting of Survey Studies (CROSS)
guideline, validated by the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research
(EQUATOR) network? It would have been mandatory to conform with this international
guideline standard.
- Results: the only available statistical analysis was done for the parameters in Table 1 (the rest
of the data were simply reported without any further analysis). Regarding these data in Table
1, the authors have performed ANOVA test, which is aimed to check for potential statistical
differences among *all* the groups; in order to check potential statistical differences between
different categories, they should perform post-hoc analysis (comparing pairs).
- Discussion: the authors should clarify that they subdivided age categories arbitrarily.
- Discussion: the management of women affected by gynecological cancers needs a particular
attention even to the preservation of an appropriate quality of life and sexual function, which
risk being severely impaired by surgical/chemo/radio treatments. I would discuss this point, at
least briefly, referring to: PMID: 28275393; PMID: 28625095."