Title: Relationship satisfaction and self-esteem in patients with breast cancer and healthy
women: The role of expected and actual personal projects support from the partner
Version: 1 Date: 12 Apr 2023
Reviewer's report:
The authors aimed at investigating the links between intimate partner’s support regarding
personal project and women’s well-being in a comparative study between Hungarian breast
cancer patients and women from the general population. The study benefits from a strong
methodological background, using the self-determination theory, from a suitable statistical
methodology, and from an original topic. Even if simple in its design, the study brings light on a
topic of major interest as it raises awareness on potential determinants of breast cancer patients’
well-being. Even if the study is essentially descriptive, it brings an original point of view on
this interesting and crucial topic. The manuscript is of good quality and very understandable.
Despite this, some points are raised that could improve the manuscript, notably the Introduction,
Methods, and Discussion.
Major and minor suggestions are formulated for the authors.
Major corrections
Introduction
1. P. 3, l.39-40: The argument behind “Among supportive relationships, intimate relationship
has unique significance for women (4)” could be developed by presenting some examples of
which point have a unique significance and on what.
2. P.5, l.60-61: The argument behind “However, in a relationship, the need to discuss difficulties
and strive to protect the partner is not always in equilibrium (9).” could be developed by
presenting some examples.
3. P. 5: The transition between the part “Social support in chronic illness” and the part “Personal
project during a chronic illness” appears to be precipitous. The part “Personal project during a
chronic illness” could be reorganized to bring more fluency in its writing.
Methods
4. P.8, l.111-115: Those elements should be presented in the Results part.
Discussion
5. P.21, l.224-225: The element “having a diagnosis does not necessarily affect the way
of relational functioning (40)” seems to be a mismatch with some of the current literature.
The manuscript could gain from a discussion regarding the elements that could explain this
mismatch.
6. It seems that clinical and/or practical implications are omitted from the manuscript. This paper
could gain from such a development as it would allow for concrete application for clinicians or
stakeholders that could read this study.
Minor corrections
Introduction
7. P. 3: The sentence “Below, we review research on the role of different types of social
support in adaptation to chronic illness and what role personal projects’ support may play in
the adaptation process” brings confusion on the design of this study. It could be rephrased to
introduce the observational and comparative design of the study.
8. P. 4, l.47: The terms “affect decreased” seem not clear, they could be replaced by others.
9. P. 6: The references (21, 23, 24) seem far from the population of interest. It could be beneficial
to reduce the part that are relative to them and develop the studies relative to (breast) cancer
patients.
10. P.7: I’m not sure of the necessity of the Figure 1 that brings not much information, compared
to the main text.
11. P. 7, l.88-94: The arguments presented here could be presented before as they justify the
sample and the study.
Discussion
12. P.23, l.254: As the study includes only one time of measure, it seems controversial to use
the term “predicted”. It is recommended to replace it in a more correlative language.