Reviewer's report
Title:Mammography screening: views from women and primary care physicians
in Crete
Version: 3Date:30 September 2008
Reviewer: Marvella Ford
Reviewer's report:
Manuscript Title: Mammography Screening: Views from Women and Primary
Care Physicians in Crete
Major Compulsory Revisions
The manuscript is significantly improved. It now includes a clearly described
conceptual framework, the model of transcultural health care utilization. Some
changes could still be made to improve the clarity and focus of the manuscript.
For example, the Abstract does not describe the breast cancer mortality rates in
Greece. It is not clear how they compare with breast cancer mortality rates in
other areas of the world. Similarly, the Abstract does not include information
pertaining to the mean age (with range and standard deviation) of the study
participants. The focus of the last two sentences in the Abstract is unclear. It is
not clearly described what physicians will do with the information presented in the
manuscript.
On page 3, the authors do not describe how local initiatives were designed or
what their results were. What were the outcomes of these local initiatives? Also
on page 3, the authors state “… use of the private sector, including private
diagnostic centres, is on the increase”. However, the authors do not describe
which groups are showing the increase. Are the sociodemographic
characteristics of people who use private diagnostic centers different from those
who do not?
In the Analysis section on page 9, it is not clear whether all data transcriptions
were analyzed by the same person. If so, this is not recommended. It would be
better to have qualitative data analyzed by more than one person.
There needs to be an introduction to the Results section. This section could
begin by describing the sociodemographic characteristics of the study
participants. More than one quote could be used to support the claim on page 11
that “this may suggest that doctors enjoy high status and are revered by some
women in Crete.”
On page 12, the first sentence in the first full paragraph (which begins “Of the 15
women…” could be moved to the first paragraph in the Results section, along
with other sociodemographic information related to the study participants.
On page 14, it is not clear why the ages of participants are described in relation
to some of the responses, but not all? This is inconsistent reporting. Also on
page 14, more than one quote would be needed to support the major point
related to the statement “displaying a trust in physicians to recommend screening
if they needed it.”
On page 22, the paragraph that begins with “In response to…” is too vague. The
impact of predisposing factors on knowledge and use of mammography
screening is not adequately described.
Minor Essential Revisions
As a minor point, “data” is plural, so the phrase “data were” could be substituted
for “data was.
On page 16, the statement “Of the remainder…” is unclear. Remainder of what?
On page 18, the phrase “to be screened” could be added to “women in the
appropriate age range.”
On page 19, the word “after” following “appointments” could be deleted because
the word “after” appears again later in this sentence.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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.