JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:Outcomes of vaginal hysterectomy for uterovaginal prolapse: a
retrospective, cross-sectional study of patient perceptions of results including
sexual activity, urinary symptoms, and provided care
Version: 2Date:26 February 2009
Reviewer: John E Jelovsek
Reviewer's report:
1) The manuscript reports on short term, subjective, patient-centered outcomes
from vaginal hysterectomy (+sacrouterine ligament apical suspension according
to comments) for pelvic organ prolapse. This has been reported in the literature
in over 40 studies making this report less informative.
2) The study uses non-validated and unreliable, subjective, patient-centered
outcome measures. Therefore the reliablity of the results are unknown. There are
well established patient centered outcome measures available.
2) There are insufficient data on concommitant procedures including combined
apical suspensions. As a reviewer, I am unable to attribute the complications in
this sample to just hysterectomy as the authors point out most had some apical
suspension which typically adds risk to surgery and other concommitant
procedures are not listed.
Overall, there are two main themes that make interpreting the results unclear.
The intervention(s) is unable to be clearly defined and the subjective outcomes
are unreliably measured.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Molecular tests for human papillomavirus (HPV), Chlamydia trachomatis
and Neisseria gonorrhoeae in liquid-based Pap cytology specimen
Version: 1Date:29 January 2009
Reviewer: Jonathan Zenilman
Reviewer's report:
1. I think I may have seen this in pre-review, and had concerns about the
importance of the issue--We would not be using Pap smears/liiquid cytology
media, from a public health standpoint to do GC/CT screening
2). However, I do think that the point that they raise--i.e. the PPV or these tests in
a low prevalence population, is an important one and one that is not appreciated
by clinicians
The paper is extremely long for the relatively minor point that the authors are
making. This should be shortened to a communication or brief report, and the
methods (the molecular stuff whihc takes a lot of space) can be linked as a web
supplement
Reviewer's report
Title:Delivery of chlamydia screening to young women requesting emergency
hormonal contraception at pharmacies in Manchester, UK : a prospective study.
Version: 1Date:1 February 2009
Reviewer: David Mabey
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting operational study of one aspect of the national Chlamydia
screening programme. The authors conclude that screening at pharmacies
offering emergency hormonal contraception will only be effective if coverage and
uptake can be greatly increased. It would help to set this study in context if the
authors were to cite publications by Nicola Low which review the likely impact of
opportunistic (as opposed to systematic) screening for Chlamydia in general.
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Delivery of chlamydia screening to young women requesting emergency
hormonal contraception at pharmacies in Manchester, UK : a prospective study.
Version: 2Date:5 March 2009
Reviewer: Catherine Aicken
Reviewer's report:
This is a really interesting article. No further 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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of Breast Cancer Risk Factors in a County with Elevated
Breast Cancer Incidence Compared to a Demographically Similar Area in
Northern California, USA
Version: 1Date:2 June 2008
Reviewer: Mario Schootman
Reviewer's report:
The purpose of this manuscript is to disentangle the relationship between breast
cancer risk factor prevalence and sociodemographic characteristics of members
of Kaiser Permanente Medical Care in 2 California counties, one of which has an
elevated breast cancer incidence. There are several strengths to this manuscript.
However, there are many limitations as well.
Major Compulsory Revisions
The authors did not provide any information about why the sample size consisted
of 1500 women.
The purpose of the selection of a second county was to identify a county that was
similar to Marin County. However, the justification for selection of East/Central
Contra Cost County was not very strong (page 3). It is only based on someone’s
opinion. Census data, or other data sources, could have been used.
What percentage of the population of each county were members of KPNC?
How would the higher response rate in Marin County have affected the findings?
Do the authors have any information to assess selection bias?
No differences were found in age-adjusted invasive breast cancer incidence rate
between the 2 counties among KPNC members. Some differences were found in
breast cancer risk score and reproductive factors among KPNC members. How
could these results shed any light upon the reasons for the higher incidence rate
among all residents among Marin County., which is what the purpose of the
study was (Introduction)?
Minor Essential Revisions
The readers would be interested to know that the questions that were used in the
3-page survey were previously found to have adequate validity and reliability, if
this is the case.
Please provide a reference for the categorization of the Gail scores.
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:Prevalence of Breast Cancer Risk Factors in a County with Elevated
Breast Cancer Incidence Compared to a Demographically Similar Area in
Northern California, USA
Version: 1Date:30 June 2008
Reviewer: Kevin Hughes
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
The authors state that a Gail score was calculated for each participant, but do not
say they excluded patients with breast cancer, for whom a Gail score would not
be appropriate. Were women with breast cancer excluded?
The authors state:
'Gail scores represent the estimated risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer in
the next five years, and are categorized as low (<1.20), moderate (1.20-1.0), or
high (#1.70) risk.' Are these the authors categories or are they from the
literature? These categories should be age dependent (A 1.7% risk is average for
a 67 yo woman, but very high for a 45yo woman. The authors should site their
source, or explain how they came to this grouping.
p values should be given for all stats. It is concerning that subgroups of 40 tp 44
are being looked at independently in such a small sample. Do the authors think
they have the power for that type of subset analysis?
The authors state that MC had fewer LOW Gail scores, but the Gail score as they
categorize it is very sensitive to age, and MC has more older individuals
answering the survey. Is this the caucse of the difference? Also, higher Gail
scores had more mammograms, but were also the older women. Is the rate of
mammography related to age, rahther than Gail score?
Bar charts might be useful in showing the differences between the counties.
Table 6 is an interesting table, but lacks a control or expected number. Can this
number be shown for the county as a whole as well as the KP estimate? We
need a comparison.
Minor Essential Revisions
Discretionary Revisions
While the response rates to the survey are very high, the absolute number of
respondents is low, and the respondents are somewhat self selected. It is not
clear that the respondents represent the composition of each county or that there
are sufficient numbers to identify slight differences in risk factors. In addition, by
choosing only KP memebrs, and only those that repsond, it is not clear that the
differences between the 2 counties are not being washed out (There are very few
non-white respondents). Perhaps it would be useful to send a larger number of
surveys to minorities, and then to normalize back to the actual population
distribution of minorities (I thnk this will not be possible at this time, as it would
require the study being redone) Can the authors comment?
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Differences in reproductive risk factors for breast cancer in middle-aged
women in Marin County and a demographically similar area of Northern
California
Version: 3Date:4 November 2008
Reviewer: Mario Schootman
Reviewer's report:
Most of the reviewers’ comments have been addressed satisfactorily. Reworking
the tables was great. However, there is one remaining issue with this revised
manuscript.
Major Compulsory Revisions
The major issue remaining is that it is unclear how the lack of a difference in
age-adjusted invasive breast cancer incidence rates between the 2 counties
among KPNC members could shed any light upon the reasons for the higher
incidence rate among all residents among Marin County. The authors’ reply 1.6 is
not entirely satisfactory. It appears that the authors want their results to help
explain why incidence rates were higher in Marin County among all women
compared to other counties as stated in the Introduction. However, in the
authors’ replay 2.9 they state that the KPNC women are not representative of
women from the larger counties. It is unclear to me how the authors can make
the case both ways especially since there were no differences in breast cancer
incidence rates.
On page 13, the authors make the case that because the Gail scores did not
differ between counties there would not be an issue with response bias.
However, the study is underpowered based on the response rates. Moreover,
can response bias be assessed statistically?
Minor Essential Revisions
Although it is accurate that 1500 women were mailed surveys as stated in the
abstract, it would be important to include the number of women who actually
responded in the results section of the abstract.
It is unclear to me why the authors decided to report mammography use among
women age 41-64 rather than age 40-64, as the guidelines suggest.
What is p=.0002 refer to for Asian women in Table 1?
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:Knowledge and Attitude on Maternal Health Care among Rural-to-Urban
Migrant Women in Shanghai, China
Version: 1Date:5 January 2009
Reviewer: Luis L Cabero
Reviewer's report:
It is a very nice paper that put on table one of the must important problem in
prenatal care, that is the knowlegement of the maternal health care of migrants
coming from a rural area to Shanghai. That is important from the Public Health
policies due that the Health Care providers must inforce the information
strategies in this group of patients.
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Knowledge and Attitude on Maternal Health Care among Rural-to-Urban
Migrant Women in Shanghai, China
Version: 1Date:26 January 2009
Reviewer: Tiziano Maggino
Reviewer's report:
This study is focused on assessing the knowledge and attitude on maternal
health care in rural-to-urban migrant pregnant women interviewed in a referral
hospital in Shanghai.
In the opinion of this reviewer, there are some methodological limitations of the
study
- there is not clear definition about criteria of inclusion, number of residents and
migrants pregnant women in the some months al recruitment
- a control group of pregnant women resident in the area was not study
- data about pregnancy outcome in the study population (and in a control
group)should be described (gestational week-mode of delivery-newborn
weight-apgar'score-nicu referral etc.
- in the absence of a control group the conclusions about the real attitude and
knowledge of rural-to-urban migrant women is are of limited value.
In conclusion:this paper could have an interesting value, even if regional, but
suffers of methodological limitations which do not allow to give a clear picture of
the issue on study.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Knowledge and Attitude on Maternal Health Care among Rural-to-Urban
Migrant Women in Shanghai, China
Version: 2Date:9 March 2009
Reviewer: Tiziano Maggino
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:Increasing physical activity in postpartum multiethnic women in Hawaii:
Results from a quasi-experimental study: the Footsteps Project
Version: 1Date:1 August 2008
Reviewer: Winifred W Eboh
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
I feel that this is a very useful piece of research that can inform a broard
spectrum of health professionals, however, I am concerned that the sample
selected for this study maynot be representative of the general population for the
generalisations made from the findings.
Sampple size too small for statistics undertaken; was a power calculation
undertaken to ensure that any significant results obtained were indeed from the
study finidngs and not by chance. Suggestion, descriptive statistics maybe more
suitable to describe the findings and possibilly, reporting this study as either a
preliminary study or a pilot stuy.
Although inferences were made about ethnic minority women, very little
information was provided to assess cultural norms and expections which may
inpact directly on the level of activity these women engage in.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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'
Reviewer's report
Title:Increasing physical activity in postpartum multiethnic women in Hawaii:
Results from a quasi-experimental study: the Footsteps Project
Version: 1Date:9 August 2008
Reviewer: Holly Kennedy
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
Provide an operational definition of sedentary.
Please describe more fully the SCT/YYM intervention that was based on focus
group information from 79 mothers. More information about the intervention is
essential and a table/figure would help in illustrating it. In particular, it would be
helpful to understand its theoretical foundations in SCT/TTM. Specific questions
about the intervention include:
- How long was the first and last visit?
- Where were they conducted?
- How the intervention was developed (i.e. any other input than the focus
groups?)
- Was there any pilot testing prior to this study?
- How was the decision to follow for 2 months derived; why not longer?
Describe how was the person conducting the intervention trained? Was there a
script? Did one or more persons conduct the intervention?
Describe how pedometers were used in the study. The authors’ mention that
women used a pedometer in the results, but there is no mention of this in the
description of the intervention or in data collection.
Discretionary Revisions
Were there any differences based on infant age?
There are no reports of changes in weight/BMI yet these were collected at the 2
month follow up?
I think their program of research could be more fully described and where this is
situated. In particular the title refers to the "Footsteps Project" but there is no
overall description of this.
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:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Increasing physical activity in postpartum multiethnic women in Hawaii:
Results of a Pilot Study
Version: 3Date:10 December 2008
Reviewer: Winifred W Eboh
Reviewer's report:
I thank the authors for their letter addressing my queries. I note that the study
has now been called a pilot as requested.
I do however feel that there cannot be any inferences made from the findings
based on the behaviour of ethnic minority women with this study given the way
participants were recruited to the study. Baby Hui is probably the equivalent of
the National Childbirth Trust in the UK. In my experience, women who attend
such groups are usually well motivated and are not typical of the general
population. Therefore these results is not generalisable to the wider population.
.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Reviewer's report
Title:Increasing physical activity in postpartum multiethnic women in Hawaii:
Results of a Pilot Study
Version: 3Date:16 December 2008
Reviewer: Holly Kennedy
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for your careful attention to the reviewers' comments.
It appears this pilot study does show promise and should be disseminated. I have
provided several editorial comments that I believe would strengthen the
manuscript.
BACKGROUND
The background should provide a bit more depth on the WIC study so the
comparisons to your study can be drawn more thoroughly in the discussion
section. I would end the background section with a much stronger statement on
the purpose of this current pilot study. You could pull the statement at the top of
page 5 to finish the background section.
Page 4 – please spell out the name of MVLPA before referring to it by the initials
in the manuscript.
METHODS
Where did the visits with the women take place – in their homes, in a research
setting?
RESULTS
This section could be more in-depth. One strategy would be to match the findings
with the factors identified in Table 1 (which was an excellent addition to the
manuscript).
DISCUSSION
This is rather minimal as is the conclusion. It would be improved to see a more
in-depth discussion of what is new as a result of this pilot study. How is it
different and/or better than the WIC program. You suggest that this intervention
is by telephone and email – but in actuality women had face-to-face contact as a
result of the study. That adds considerably to assessing the practicality of the
intervention for broad scale use and should be addressed.
Limitations – I would add that the sample was also primarily married, in addition
to the other narrow demographic profile of the sample. How did this sample differ
from the WIC study? How will you address this in future studies?
Level of interest: An article of insufficient interest to warrant publication in a
scientific/medical journal
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 I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Help-seeking behaviors for female sexual dysfunction: a cross sectional
study from Iran
Version: 1Date:2 December 2008
Reviewer: Rosario Castano
Reviewer's report:
This is an original study due to the population who is included, as there is no
other work of this sort on the Iranian society. Besides, it is very interesting
because of the number of the initial sample and also owing to the high number of
participants, the results obtained and the comparison which is made between the
local results and other studies at the international level.
The manuscript is acceptable to be published, although it needs the following
minor revisions:
• Abstracts: a detailed description of the questionnaire is needed: name, number
of items.
• Methods: in the questionnaire section, it would be necessary to include a
detailed description of the total number and sort of items. If possible, I
recommend including the questionnaire on a separated table, as it was given to
women.
• Discussion: on page number 8, the last paragraph before the conclusions
section: “In this...... the medical consuttations”. This sentence is not very well
understandable and could cause some confusion.
• Conclusions: It would be recommendable to emphasize the most significant
results from the study. Affirmations are very general and could be confused.
I would like to congratulate all the authors for this initiative and their effort in
improving the quality of the health system. I hope this interesting study will be
published.
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
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:Help-seeking behaviors for female sexual dysfunction: a cross sectional
study from Iran
Version: 1Date:28 December 2008
Reviewer: Kevan Wylie
Reviewer's report:
1. Is the question posed by the authors well defined? YES
2. Are the methods appropriate and well described? SEE BELOW
3. Are the data sound? SEE BELOW
4. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data
deposition? YES
5. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported
by the data? YES
6. Are limitations of the work clearly stated? NO
7. Do the authors clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building,
both published and unpublished? YES
8. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found? YES
9. Is the writing acceptable?YES
Major compulsory revision.
Under methodology, much more information about the questionnaire is required
which outlines the detail of the questions asked of participants which relate and
confirm the diagnosis of 'FSD [w]as defined by DSM-IV criteria'. The duration,
categories and existence of the disorders must be clearly stated. For example,
what differentiates LD from AD? What constitutes SD and how does this relate to
DSMIV? How were the responses confirmatory if no interview of the participants
occured? The questionnaire was presumably written in Farsi but if possible,
some of the questionnaire in English would be a valuable addition for review by
readers and could be included within an appendix.
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'