JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:Perceptions of illness in cancer survivors are associated with health-related
variables and adaptive coping styles
Version: 1Date:11 September 2008
Reviewer: Ellen Levine
Reviewer's report:
I thought this was a well-written paper and an interesting subject. It was clear and
easy to read. One of the strengths is the exploratory factor analysis that was
performed. I only had a few comments:
On page 10 I don't understand how Body Mass Index could be relevant.
Was the one male patient retained in the analyses? The Discussion section
starts off with saying that the patients were female.
Some types, e.g., pg 13 (guilt, not guild)
I don't understand the last sentence of pg 14
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Reproductive tract infections in women seeking abortion in Vietnam
Version: 1Date:6 August 2008
Reviewer: Aya Goto
Reviewer's report:
Discretionary revisions
1. Article will be enhanced by adding data of similar surveys from difference
countries.
Minor essential revisions
1. Abstract, page 2, line 11: Change “BC” to “BV”.
2. Results, page 8, line 3: Change “reliability” to “validity”.
3. Discussion, page 9, line 6: Add “City” after “Ho Chi Minh”.
Major compulsory revisions
1. Methods, page 4, last line of “Sample collection, storage and transport”: Were
negative results not checked at all? Please describe more about the quality
control of laboratory tests at PSH (training of laboratory technicians, double
reading of slides, etc.), since it is critical in a prevalence study.
2. Discussion, page 10, paragraph 2: As authors discuss, uncertain accuracy of
laboratory tests is the major limitation in the present study as indicated by low
sensitivity and specificity. On the other hand, conduct of the validation test is one
of its strengths. I would recommend the author to re-structure the paper to focus
more on results of the validation test to highlight the need of improved diagnosis.
3. Conclusion: Since the accuracy of diagnosis is doubtful, I recommend the
authors to avoid any conclusive statement about RTI prevalence among abortion
clients from the present data. In relation, they should be more cautious in
recommending prophylactic antibiotic prescription. Health professionals in
Vietnam are overly concerned about RTIs and over-treatment is a serious
problem.
4. Table 4: Presenting 2x2 table data for each diagnosis would be more
informative than just presenting sensitivity and specificity.
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:Reproductive tract infections in women seeking abortion in Vietnam
Version: 1Date:11 August 2008
Reviewer: Beverley Lawton
Reviewer's report:
This is a very well written, easy to read report about an important subject and
adds to the literature. The design is very well done with the external validation of
microbiological tests The results strongly point to the need for more effective
tests for important STI’s so as to reduce morbidity from these diseases. There
also needs to be a couple of paragraphs comparing with overseas literature . The
authors have made some rationalisation as to why there are low STI rates but it
would be of importance to describe and compare aborting populations across
countries. This could probably be done in a couple of sentences. The abortion
rate in Vietnam may also reflect lack of access to other forms of contraception. A
major weakness is the possible lack of generalisation of these results and this
needs to be explored – A more accurate description of recruitment and who and
what numbers agreed to take part. Is an urban population of mostly married
women a generalisation to the population of women who are aborting in Vietnam
or is that not known.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1.Please include the recruitment data . For example number of those who agreed
to participate versus declined to participate. What was the profile of those who
declined?
2.number of cases reported on page three para 3 Is this 5,000or 5 million
3. Please clarify table 1 -were all women presenting for Top multiparous if so,
why as this would be unusual. It is not clear from this data how many G1P0
women were aborting which would be of interest. It appears from this data that all
women had at least 1 child –Is this correct? If so you would need to alter Table 1
no of pregnancies to reflect this and explain in text.
4.On page 7 results it is stated that Chlamydia infection is not associated with a
womens age I.e chlamydia infection occurred more often in older groups that
expected - What does this mean- is this a statistical analysis?. It would have
been helpful to have put in something like there was no difference in rates of STI
or RTIS when controlling for age parity or marital status
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 I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Reproductive tract infections in women seeking abortion in Vietnam
Version: 3Date:5 November 2008
Reviewer: Aya Goto
Reviewer's report:
All of my comments were adequately taken into consideration when revising the
manuscript. However, there remains one question and some minor requests.
Major Compulsory Revisions
1. Results, page 7, para 4: Responding to Reviewer 1, author rephrased the last
sentence of the paragraph as “There was no difference in the rates of STIs and
endogenous infections when controlling for age, parity and marital status.”
Should the word “control” be replaced by “stratify”? If not, please describe
difference between/among what.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Abstract, Conclusions: Please include a need to improve diagnostic
techniques, which is stated in the very beginning of your revised concluding
paragraph in page 11. Otherwise, as I mentioned in my previous comments, your
abstract may be misinterpreted to invite further pragmatic over-treatment.
2. Table 1: The number of deliveries overlaps largely with the number of living
children. To match your description of the table in page 7, the number of
pregnancies had better be presented.
3. Discussion, page 9, para 1, line 4: Please insert a reference number.
4. Discussion, page 10, para 3: Please added a phrase, "at one hospital", to the
third sentence from the bottom.
“The study was further a clinical-based study conducted at one hospital to
assess...”
5. Table 4: Please replace “RH” with “CUH”. Explanations using “a, b, c, d” can
be eliminated.
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:Reproductive tract infections in women seeking abortion in Vietnam
Version: 3Date:11 November 2008
Reviewer: Beverley Lawton
Reviewer's report:
I recommend publication. The authors have responded to all my concerns. I do
note one inconsistancy . On page 7 of results it states that "About two third of
women had never had children" According to table one this is one third. Thank
you for the opportunity to rereview this article .
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 I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Characteristics of patients initiating raloxifene compared to those initiating
bisphosphonates
Version: 1Date:6 June 2008
Reviewer: E. Michael Lewiecki
Reviewer's report:
This is a straightforward retrospective cohort review of claims databases with
predictable findings. It is well conducted with conclusions that are generally
supported by the data. I question a few details that would be best to clarify:
1. In the conclusion of the abstract and text, it is stated that patients treated with
raloxifene appear to have less severe osteoporosis than those treated with
bisphosphonates. While this might well be true, it is not clear to me whether most
patients in either group had a densitometric or clinical diagnosis of osteoporosis.
If it is not know how many patients in each group had a WHO classification of
osteoporosis, osteopenia, or normal, the authors should consider rephrasing this
statement.
2. page 5, 1st paragraph- It is stated that 6.7% of patients treated with IV
bisphosphonates develop osteonecrosis, and later it is said that most cases
occur in cancer patients. However, it is not made clear that IV bisphosphonates
used to treat osteoporosis appear to pose no greater risk for ONJ than oral
bisphosphonates for osteoporosis. It might be best to state this clearly so as not
to leave the reader with the impression that IV bisphosphonates for osteoporosis
are a greater risk factor for ONJ than oral.
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Characteristics of patients initiating raloxifene compared to those initiating
bisphosphonates
Version: 1Date:13 June 2008
Reviewer: Suzanne Cadarette
Reviewer's report:
Authors aim to compare characteristics between patients initiating raloxifene vs.
bisphosphonates for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis.
Authors raise some great discussion points, such as:
• limitation of their study in not having formulary information
• clarifying that they studied Medicare patients with employer benefits
• the fact that comparative effectiveness studies must take important differences
in patient characteristics into consideration
Major compulsory revisions
Changes to the study design and analysis will facilitate interpretation:
1. Restrict study to women. Raloxifene is approved to prevent and treat
osteoporosis among postmenopausal women. Including men who essentially
only contribute to bisphosphonate use can introduce bias.
2. Restrict analyses to new users of either agent (so comparing treatment
decision to start pharmacotherapy).
3. Include only oral bisphosphonates approved for OP, i.e., exclude etidronate
and daily use of 40mg alendronate and 30mg risedronate (approved for Paget’s
disease of bone, not OP).
4. Exclude:
a.Patients with Paget’s diagnosis of bone
b.Any prior raloxifene or any prior bisphosphonate (thus limit to new users of
either agent)—as mentioned above
5. Add multivariable logistic regression (raloxifene as the outcome) to determine
independent association between each covariate and prescribing.
Minor essential revisions
1. Figures 1 and 2 and not helpful because the information is contained in the
table. Suggest that authors omit these figures.
2. Follow current standards for reporting of observational studies (STROBE). In
particular, a STROBE figure will help readers follow cohort assembly, exclusion
etc.
3. Update literature review. MacLean AnnInternMed 2008;148:197-213
(systematic review of OP treatment effects) + recent letters to the editor is
particularly relevant, as is our recent study that found similar differences in
background risk between raloxifene and bisphosphonates (Ann Intern Med
2008;148:637-46).
4. Page 8, 2nd paragraph. Please clarify that you do not have prescriber ID
number and thus are approximating…
5. Consider adding other potential correlates of raloxifene prescribing, e.g.,
Mammography, stroke, DVT, diagnosis of osteoporosis
Discretionary revisions
Including an appendix with claim codes used to define background covariates
may help to improve transparency of this work.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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:Characteristics of patients initiating raloxifene compared to those initiating
bisphosphonates
Version: 2Date:10 November 2008
Reviewer: Suzanne Cadarette
Reviewer's report:
I commend authors for their efforts in responding to reviewer comments. I have a
few outstanding questions that authors should be able to respond to without
further review.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Since the purpose of the study is to compare women starting therapy, I
question the relevance of requiring 6-months of plan enrolment following
treatment initiation (would exclude, for example, women who die within 6-months
after treatment initiation).
- Please clarify the rationale for restricting the study to those with 6-month post
treatment initiation.
- Please also clarify # excluded due to plan enrolment based on 12-month pre-
vs. 6-months post- treatment initiation in Table 1.
2. Please clarify why many of the covariates listed in Table 3 are not presented in
the adjusted analyses (Table 4), e.g., cardiovascular disease, hormone
deprivation.
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:Preliminary development of a scale to measure stigma relating to sexually
transmitted infections among women in a high risk neighbourhood
Version: 2Date:27 June 2008
Reviewer: Adina Nack
Reviewer's report:
I appreciate the thoughtful and thorough author's response to reviewers, and I
am impressed with the revised manuscript.
The only minor essential revision I recommend is in regard to the first part of the
"Discussion" section, pages 13-15, where the authors report that higher internal
stigma was found among "women reporting Aboriginal, Inuit or Metis ethnicity."
The clarification of this finding is on page 15, a paragrah that begins, "High levels
of female-specific moral stigma..." I appreciate the final sentence of that
paragraph, "...indicating that a culturally-specific influence was present."
I understand the author's point about not having the time/resources to add a brief
discussion of how these three cultures have traditionally constructed meanings of
feminine sexual morality. So, the next best solution may be acknowleding it as a
small but real limitation of the current study and noting it in that section of the
paper. Its clear that practitioners' abilities to interpret the meanings of the
developed stigma scale would be enhanced by research on culturally-specific
constructions of STIs, especially with regard to feminine sexual morality, of the
cultural/ethnic groups from which samples are drawn.
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:Preliminary development of a scale to measure stigma relating to sexually
transmitted infections among women in a high risk neighbourhood
Version: 2Date:22 July 2008
Reviewer: Carol Kaufman
Reviewer's report:
Largely, the authors have addressed the concerns of the first review. I have only
minor observations that the authors may want to address in future revisions:
1. The response to the future of the scale I found to be less than satisfying. The
authors do suggest it should be tested in a hypothess-driven manner, but what
do the findings from this analysis say to researchers or practitioners? This
concern is particularly salient since only 4 covariates were found to have a
significant association with the scales. Still, I think something more meaningful
could be discussed with respect to the specific findings. Also, since the
female-specific moral stigma showed no relationship with individual
characteristics, the statement about preconceived notions of ‘bad girl’
membership superseding participation in programs seems unsupported. In other
words, one can develop scales that behave nicely as scales, but they may not be
useful as a analytic or practitioner tool: They meet conceptualization
expectations, but empirically are not supported. Perhaps a fuller address of this
issue would make the results of the work more compelling. Is it the power in the
sample which produced so many non-findings? What do the significant results
that are found imply, both theoretically and methodologically? (Some of this is
touched on, e.g., p.15, but only slightly).
2. I strongly recommend the authors reverse-code the scales: Higher scores
should mean higher stigma levels.
3. The Table numbers and titles do not appear to be quite accurate:
a. Table 3 (cont.) on the last page should be Table 4 (cont.),
b. Some significant finding are in bold, while others are not,
c. The title for Table 4 still contains the reference to “tribal stigma.”
d. Please include usual regression stats (n’s, R-sq, etc.) on Table 4.
e. Calculating post-hoc sample power to determine the level of effect possible to
detect might provide some useful information for the discussion/conclusions.
Related to this, flagging .10 sig levels is not typically perceived as very rigorous,
but may be a function of sample power, and in any case likely up to the discretion
of the journal editors.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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:Mammography screening: views from women and primary care physicians
in Crete
Version: 1Date:31 August 2007
Reviewer: Marvella Ford
Reviewer's report:
General
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Compulsory Revisions (that the author must respond to before a decision
on publication can be reached)
Manuscript Title: Mammography Screening: Views from Women and Primary
Care Physicians in Crete
The study focuses on an important topic: Perceptions of mammography
screening among women and primary care physicians in Crete, Greece. The
authors effectively note differences between screening in Greece and in other
countries, stating that Greece has no “nationally formulated strategy” for
mammography and breast cancer early detection. The study results will have
significant impact on the development of national policy.
The manuscript lacks a description of how the sociodemographic characteristics
of the study participants might have influenced their responses to the study
questions. Similarly, for the physicians in the study, it is not clear how their age or
years spent working as physicians might have influenced their responses.
The manuscript lacks a clearly described conceptual framework. As a result, the
basis or underlying rationale for the development of the questions asked during
the individual interviews is difficult to understand. The inclusion of a conceptual
framework would also aid in the interpretation of study data. For example, the
rationale by which themes were selected for the data coding process is a bit
unclear. An expanded conceptual framework could include participants’ spiritual
beliefs, as reported by the authors, such as a participant’s statement that “God
has appointed doctors to save and help people”.
The inclusion of a conceptual framework could also help the interpretation of the
comments made by the female participants vis a vis the comments made by the
physicians in the study.
The lack of a clearly described conceptual framework makes it difficult to
interpret the study results in a cohesive manner.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of
a term, which the author can be trusted to correct)
On p. 3 of the manuscript, the authors appear to confuse diagnostic
mammography with screening mammography when they state “Physicians are
able to request mammography for a woman when there is a suspicion of a breast
problem or when the woman asks the physicians for mammography screening”.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Revisions (which the author can choose to ignore)
What next?: Accept after minor essential 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:Mammography screening: views from women and primary care physicians
in Crete
Version: 2Date:10 April 2008
Reviewer: Marvella Ford
Reviewer's report:
Manuscript Title: Mammography Screening: Views from Women and Primary
Care Physicians in Crete
Major Compulsory Revisions
The study focuses on an important topic: Perceptions of mammography
screening among women and primary care physicians in Crete, Greece. The
authors have been somewhat responsive to the previous critique.
For example, it is not entirely clear that the previous questions related to the
effect of socioeconomic status on the study outcomes have been adequately
addressed.
Also, the study focuses on a rural population, yet little attention is paid to some of
the barriers to screening experienced by rural populations.
A more pressing concern is the fact that the authors only briefly mention a
conceptual framework on page 6. The framework does not appear to be
adequately developed or well described.
It is not clear whether predisposing vs. enabling factors, which are part of the
briefly-mentioned conceptual framework used by the authors, would differentially
influence mammography screening for women in rural vs. urban areas. Also, the
extent to which the conceptual framework encompasses different types of health
systems is unclear. It is also not clear how knowledge, attitudes, and perceived
practices, which are described by the authors in relation to mammography
screening, fit into the conceptual framework.
It is also not clear how, specifically, the research questions were guided by the
conceptual framework. Also, the results and discussion section do not seem to
be classified according to the components of the conceptual framework.
In Table 1, it is not clear whether “Weekly Income” refers to weekly personal
income or to weekly household income. It would be helpful if the major outcome
variable, reported use of mammography, were listed as a category at the top of
the table so that readers could see the number and percentage of people in
different age, marital status, education, and income groups who reported use of
mammography. Table 1 only includes the “ns” and does not include percentages.
Table 2 is difficult to read and interpret in its current form. Why does “Number of
physicians” appear 3 different times in row 1 of Table 2?
Minor Essential Revision
In Table 1, “Highe education” could be replaced by “Higher education”.
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.