Title: Assessment of supportive care needs among cervical cancer patients under treatment  in
Nepal: a cross sectional study
Version: 1 Date: 22 Feb 2023
Reviewer's report:
[The sentences or paragraphs within double inverted commas are quoted from the final
manuscript “Assessment of supportive care needs among cervical cancer patients under
treatment in Nepal: a cross-sectional study”. And the points in bullets are my comments.]
The specific comments are given in the track change file of the final manuscript. General
comments are as follows
This study looks interesting but it requires a lot of work. The research paper is too long. I think
it can be compressed by focusing the content from the introduction and discussion more on
cervical cancer studies rather than cancer studies in general.
Introduction
• There are several sentences in the introduction section that are incomplete and confusing. I
have listed two of them below from the manuscript:
1.“Among CC patients, 75% of the respondents were in equal to and above the second stage of
disease and only 25% of the respondents were in the first stage of disease at the time of diagnosis
(10) in Nepal.”
2.“79.7% of the CC patients experienced anxiety and 47% of the CC patients felt depression
(14).”
• While presenting data from other studies the author needs to provide some information about
that study as well. For instance, the no.2 statement (if the reference is 14 as given) could be
reframed as:
According to the hospital-based cross-sectional study in Ethiopia, 79.7%....
• Please ensure that the references match the sentences.
“The results from studies conducted in different western and other countries show that there
prevail differences in the SCNs of patients with different cancer diagnoses (18)”
• In this statement the reference given is about Iran and most Middle Eastern countries are located
in Asia so I think the author cannot state western countries
Methodology
• Were there any ethical issues while conducting the study? If yes how did the author handle
them?
Result:
• While explaining the table it is not necessary to point out each piece of information. The author
can highlight only the highest or lowest or most important data. In this way, the length of this
paper can be further compressed. For instance:
“Psychological domain, physical daily living, health system information, patient care support
and sexuality domain came 1st to 5th rank of SCNs with mean and standard deviation 70.29;
18.84, 63.25; 23.15, 57.90; 21.11, 56.46; 21.92 and 46.06; 34.16, respectively.”
Analysis:
• Please revise table 5. Did you check for multi-collinearity? It seems several of the covariates
may be correlated with each other. The CI of significant variables is too wide. Also, it does not
make sense to include variables with very low cell frequencies.
• Also the table should be self-explanatory. Reframe the caption of table 5.
Discussion
• The starting sentence of the paragraph is supposed to deliver the main idea of the paragraph
so the subsequent sentences are meant to explain that idea further. For instance:
“Most of the participants in this study stressed the need of SC in psychological, physical,
informational, patient care and sexuality domains. The assessment of SCNs for all cancer
patients is essential in Nepal to provide SC on a priority basis for different types of cancer
patients. Consistent with our findings, one study in Indonesia with gynecological cancer patients
found that 96.1% of the respondents had some need of SC and 3.9% of the respondents had no
need for SC (55).”
• This paragraph starts with a sentence about cervical cancer, and specific SC needs from the
study while the rest of the paragraph is about cancer in general with no specific SC need. So
please rewrite such paragraphs and please be consistent.
• Also, please look out for unclear and vague statements and make them more specific and to
the point. For instance,
“Our findings establish that younger patients had a greater number of unmet needs than
older ones, which can be explained by the fact that supportive care needs are influenced by
sociodemographic factors such as age, sex, marital status, and income level; and clinical factors
such as the location of cancer, stage of disease, and tumor size.”
• It could be reframed as This study revealed that younger patients had a greater number of unmet
needs than older ones. One possible explanation could be that younger patients are completely
dependent on their families even to fulfill their basic needs. Others….
Conclusion
• Rewrite the conclusion and try to make it brief and to the point. The author could add policy
implications of the findings of the study.
• Please revise and recheck the entire paper for grammatical and language errors.