Title: Factors associated with sexual violence among waitresses working in Bahir Dar City,
Ethiopia: a mixed-method study
Version: 2 Date: 23 Apr 2022
Reviewer's report:
Abstract
Background: Line3 “However, in poor and middle-income countries like Ethiopia, the severity
of the problem, the variables that expose workers to it, and the prevention efforts are less
addressed.” This is not your study objective. Severity doesn’t mean magnitude. Put strong
justification why you studied it.
Method section
How purposive sampling will be representative and how did you conduct the quantitative study?
What regression model did you use? Did you do validity and reliability tests for your tool?
“A descriptive summary of the data and logistic regression was used to identify independent
predictors using the odds ratios with a 95% confidence level and a P value of less than 0.05.”
not 95 % confidence level rather confidence interval. Rewrite this statement clearly into two
separate statements.
Result. Put number and confidence interval value for your outcome (sexual violence). What does
“witnessed family violence as a child” mean? Does it mean a husband attack on mother?
The last statement “However, waitresses who had emotionally supportive work environments
and were educated were less likely to experience workplace sexual violence.” Had grammatical
problems and how do you measure emotionally supportive workplace?
Conclusion
What are those multidimensional variable and their direction of association? What is the
implication of this research output? Write a short description including the direct responsible
body in Ethiopia.
Introduction
Paragraph 1- Paraphrase this statement “Forced or alcohol/drug-assisted infiltration of a victim;
forced or alcohol/drug-assisted events in which the victim was forced to penetrate a perpetrator
or someone else; non-physically coerced unwanted penetration; purposeful sexual touches; or
non-contact sexual activities are all parts of sexual violence.”
Paragraph 3- you said the problem is recognized and the responsible body is trying to act on
it. So what is the role of this study? On the other hand, you said “Women are also entering
work environments that have traditionally been the domain of male workers, such as corporate
headquarters, semi-trucks, health care providers’ offices, rural farms, and rural factories”. Do
these factors have contribution to sexual violence? If yes clearly indicate it.
Generally, the introduction has grammar issues and is longer. Therefore make it shorter and get
language editor support.
Method
Study setting and period
Paragraph1 line 5 “In Bahir Dar, rural to urban migration is on the increase.” Bad English (Any
reference) “The number of people eating outside their homes is expected to increase, demanding
more hotels, restaurants, and cafeterias” (any reference)
Study population: how did you do random selection? Do you have a sampling frame? Did you
have all lists of hostilities in the city?
Sampling procedure:
Not clear, show the sampling procedurally. There is mixing of activities. For example, how did
you determine k=3? What are the zones in which you classified the city? Any diagrammatical
representation of the sampling procedure? How did you draw 406 samples? Simply identifying
the direction and selecting the first sample using k=3 is a little bit of poor sampling.
Why do you exclude male waitresses? What is your ground?
Operational definition
Put reference for the definitions and also correct the grammar organizations. E.g “Unwanted
sexual behaviours, including jokes, verbal comments, and physical contact, are intentionally
done on women or girls” should be written as Unwanted sexual behaviours: including jokes,
verbal comments, and physical contact done intentionally on women or girls.
Data collection procedure
What does this statement mean “Trained and experienced data collectors were recruited for data
collection”? Are there any specific individuals in the city for this purpose? “Ten Female public
health professionals were recruited for data collectors”- say female and collection.
What this statement talks about?-“Ten Female public health professionals were recruited for
data collectors and 6 for supervisors based on previous data collection (primarily on sensitive
topics) and fluency in the local language.” Wrong grammar and English
The data collection procedure is not well written. Please rewrite it clearly with smart English
6 supervisors are numerous- it is a resource loss
Data management and analysis
There is disagreement b/n your abstract and this section? In your abstract section, you said you
used SPSS but here you said Epi data. Which software did you use? Which model did you use
for analysis? How do you manage missing?
There is no section describing about the tool you used. How do you prepare the tool? Any
validation and reliability tests?
Qualitative section
Sampling: the sampling is not clear. How are samples identified and what are the techniques?
Also, the English is difficult to understand e.g “Non-governmental organizations’ community
workers living in the city where the study participants live help us reach the females.” Poor
English
Combine the two sections (quantitative and qualitative) by separating them through paragraphs.
Result
Perception section 3rd response “Sexual violence exposes a woman's vulnerable side, making
it difficult to resist sexual advances."  The soft parts could be her financial difficulties, a
family member, or a loved one. So, I believe sexual violence is represented by threatening to
harm a loved one, reporting to her direct supervisor about her service providing performance,
threatening to be fired from a job, and refusing to pay for services unless we fulfill sex
requests." (IDI, four years in a cafeteria) 22 years, IDI, four years in a cafeteria” Write it with
clear and understandable language.
The perception section is longer. Modify it by putting concrete ideas that create an important
impact on the responsible organizations to overcome the problem. The FGD seems IDI report.
I can’t able to differentiate the reports.
Prevalence section
Poor reporting of sexual violence occasions. Use conjunctions to merge statements since there
are redundant words which reduces readability. Write it again or put in a table.
Associated variable section
How did you measure the independent variables in your study? Because I saw that most of the
variables need a clear working definition. E.g  awareness, emotional support, alcohol intake, etc
Additionally, there are grammar errors like  “Similarly, those who had witnessed family violence
as a child and had a family considered their honour more critical than their children safety
and health were nearly two times (AOR=1.75, 95%CI: 1.02, 2.99) and two times (AOR=2.07,
95%CI: 1.18, 3.64) higher odds of experiencing workplace sexual violence.” The conjunction
“and” b/n the CIs is wrongly used.
How do they experience workplace violence if they lack employment opportunities?
Add respectively for the last statement that talks about education and Rewrite it in a way that
increases the readability of the document.
Discussion section
Before directly comparing your result with others put introduction about your result. What was
done and what were the findings. Put the exact number and CI for the prevalence of WSV.
“The prevalence of sexual violence among commercial sex workers in Mekelle town, Ethiopia”
these populations are your exclusion. So why do you use it for comparison? They are different
populations.
Don’t put the recommendation in the middle of the discussion rather at the end
Paragraph 2 line 2 says eliminating sexual violence…… it is difficult to eliminate such a social
problem but we can reduce it. Therefore, use a better word rather than eliminating.
Paragraph 3- what is widespread sexual violence? The way the statement organized is wrong.
Write it again.
Paragraph 4 “the qualitative finding also revealed that consistent with previous research” what
does this statement talks about? Better to say the qualitative study revealed that the findings had
similarities with the previous studies.
“Besides the lack of exposure to sexual and reproductive health-related training, including
workplace sexual violence, waitresses in Ethiopia often fail to differentiate workplace sexual
violence forms.” How do you know this? Do you have a reference or did you assess it? A guess
in a scientific paper is not allowed. Everything should be evidence-based.
Paragraph 6-, waitresses who witnessed familial violence as a child were roughly twice as likely
as those who did not be sexually violated at work.’” Is that compared to being sexually violated
or didn’t witnessed sexual violence? Wrong comparison.
Paragraph 7- it indicates that you even copy the sources with reference (46), rather than
paraphrasing. This is plagiarism. Paraphrase it.
Paragraph 10- “Similarly, waitresses who had primary and secondary education and were more
educated than college were 82%, 71%, and 60% less likely to experience workplace sexual
violence than those who could only read and write. This finding is consistent with the Mekelle
town findings.” Add respectively in the statement and also write in good English
Paragraph 11- font-size mixing e.g findings imply that Attempts to address workplace sexual
harassment
Generally, the discussion has language limitations, synthesis, paraphrasing issues, and
organization of ideas. Revise these all. There are copies simply from other sources.
Conclusion
Fair conclusion; revise the language
Ethical issue
“This explanation helped to create an environment where women felt safe discussing personal
experiences of their work.” How do you know this?
How did you manage sensitive topics and can you present an ethical clearance?
Can you provide IDI and FGD data including audio recordings?
“It was explained that in that location were no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers.” Wrong English.
Correct it
“Despite steps taken to ensure that participants felt safe and comfortable sharing information
with researchers, some participants were still reluctant to reveal their experiences.” In opposite
to the above explanation- “create an environment where women felt safe discussing personal
experiences of their work.”
Revise the ethical section
Reference section
Most are outdated, incomplete, and difficult to identify which style was used (Vancouver vs
Harvard). Provide complete references and from which search engine they are taken.
e.g reference no 8- Ababa A: Ethiopia and ICF International Calverton. Maryland USA March.
Which is incomplete
Tables
Table 1, remove MD and SD and modify the title
Table 2 Have you been aware of sexual violence in your village? And Awareness of workplace
sexual violence? How do these questions measure awareness? Is this the way of asking? Even
the table isn’t smart.
Revise table two.
Table 3 – fair
Table 4- Have you ever been drinking alcohol? And have you ever been using drugs? Do these
questions measure the variable? It is poor measurement? How was a waitress drinking alcohol
10 years ago said to be an alcohol user? This table is unnecessary. Merge table 4 and table 5
Table 5- what about other factors like religion, ethnicity, the place grew up, living arrangements,
etc
Alcohol, sexual aggression, family poverty characteristic, emotionally supportive environment,
and level of crime were not well measured. Even there is no clear working definition for them
Figure: the finger is not clear and readable. Modify it or use a table to display
Can you provide supportive data?
Generally, the document has
1. Significant English language and grammar problems throughout the document
2. Sampling problem
3. Analysis problem
4. Measurement issue