Title: The prevalence of menstrual disorders and premenstrual syndrome among adolescent girls
living in North Borneo, Malaysia: A questionnaire-based study
Version: 1 Date: 17 Jun 2022
Reviewer's report:
1. Background Section: Page 3 line 58-59,The reference cited was about 10 years, suggestion
to  change for the newest one.
2. Background section: Page 3 line 61, what is the association of this study with earthquake?
Suggestion to remove.
3. Methods section: Page 4 line 86-88. Suggestion to change the word  in sample size calculation
"The sample size for this study was calculated based on the previous prevalence 75%... and
please cited the prevalence paper.
4. Method section: Page 5 Please explained briefly all the variable/question used in this study.
Please explained also about the severity of dysmenorrhea , how it have been categorized/what
was the cut-off point  severe, moderate, mild? Is it from a question with Likert Scale?
5. Ethics & Statistics analysis section: Page 5. Suggestion to separate this section.
6. Statistics section: Analysis using chi-square ,but authors did not show in the tables. Suggestion
to include this results in the table.
7. Results section: Please run back the all the analysis without the missing data. Missing data
should be excluded either treat as missing in SPPS or delete the whole respondents that have so
many missing data. Suggestion to clean first the data and re-analyze.
8. Result section (Typical menstrual bleeding characteristics): Page 6.  Suggestion to explain
briefly in words  what was show in the figure 1(a) & 1(b).
9. Figure 1(a) :Please insert title and also the data label. In result section have mentioned
experienced bleeding for 10 days and more, but in the figure just 10 days.
10. Figure 1(b) :Please insert title and also the data label.
11. Figure 1(c) Please insert the title
12. Result section (Dysmenorrhea) Page 7 Line 148-149. Apart from pain, the top  three
reasons for not attending ..... (n=20/646)....(n=7/646). Suggestion to report  either in prevalence/
proportion/percentage. This result was too small.
13. Result section (Menstrual-related symptoms) Page 7 line 156. Please check back this result.
The correct one is 69.2(522/754).
14. Result section (Diagnosis and discussion of dsymenorrhea) Page 7 line 160-161. Suggestion
to report  62 student (%)...15 girls (%)....
15. Discussion section: Page 8. No need to have separate sub-section like main findings,
strengths and limitation & Interpretation.  Strengths and limitation  should be explained in last
paragraph in discussion section.
16. Discussion section: Page 9 line 190. Suggestion to delete word "wealthier". Why need to
addressed this?
17. Discussion section: Page 9 line 197-198. Interestingly, the prevalence of dysmenorrhea
increases  with increasing gynecological age (age after menarche)[31-32]. What about the
current study, is the result similar?
18. Discussion section: Page 9 line 204-207. Discussion on PTSD related to dysmenorrhea  so
briefly but this current study does not show/have any results related to PTSD. Suggestion in this
section please write/discussed based on your finding.
19. Conclusion section: Page 11  Line 245. There is a word "natural disaster".. suggestion to
delete because this study does not show anything related to disaster.
20. Conclusion section: Page 11 Line 246. Suggestion to change word incidence to prevalence.
21. Discussion section: Suggestion to author to conclude first all the important findings and
followed with the recommendation.
22. Reference: Some of the reference  already more than 10 years, suggestion to  replace with
the newest.