JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:Reproductive rights and options available to women infected with HIV in
Ghana: perspectives of service providers
Version: 1Date:14 January 2013
Reviewer: ebrahim bera
Reviewer's report:
Remarks to the Editors - BMC
This paper addresses an important issue of health care worker knowledge and
awareness of the reproductive rights of HIV-infected women.
The article has no abstract or author details. It is therefore not immediately clear
what the research is all about.
Abbreviations used initially should be fully written out first, for example WHO.
The pregnancy rate per cycle of IUI of 10-12% is not referenced. The term
caesarean section should be spelled consistently throughout the document. Also,
elective caesarean section to prevent infant HIV transmission has become
obsolete in the era of combination antiretroviral therapy (Townsend et al. AIDS
2008: 22).
The specific objectives of this study are not clearly defined. When was this study
performed?
It is not clear if the health care workers interviewed were representative of the
overall health care worker population, given the skewed gender distribution. It is
not stated which measures were taken to ensure a representative group.
Table 2 includes questions that cannot be answered in a “yes” or “no” fashion.
The third question in Table 2 for example, is vague. All major guidelines currently
recommend timed unprotected intercourse for sero-discordant couples with
specific provisions: screening & treating genital tract infections, early initiation of
ART for the infected partner (based on HPTN 052), and attaining an
undetectable viral load prior to timed intercourse at ovulation. These guidelines
also state that no single method (including treatment of the infected partner) is
fully protective against HIV transmission.
In my view the author should have validated the interview questions prior to
performing this study, and therefore this study is not suitable for publication.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Reproductive rights and options available to women infected with HIV in
Ghana: perspectives of service providers from three Ghanaian health facilities
Version: 2Date:3 February 2013
Reviewer: Richard Amenyah
Reviewer's report:
author has adequately responded to ALL my comments
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest 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 rights and options available to women infected with HIV in
Ghana: perspectives of service providers from three Ghanaian health facilities
Version: 2Date:7 February 2013
Reviewer: ebrahim bera
Reviewer's report:
Major
Notwithstanding the author's response, the validity of the study questionnaire
remains unanswered.
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:Evaluation of About Being Active, an online lesson about physical activity
shows that perception of being physically active is higher in eating competent
low-income women
Version: 2Date:13 November 2012
Reviewer: Mei-Wei Chang
Reviewer's report:
The topic of the manuscript is interesting and identifying factors influencing
low-income women’s physical activity is important. However, numerous concerns
require authors’ attention. Please see specific comments below
1. It is unclear about the objectives of this manuscript. The objectives were
mentioned at least 2 places but descriptions of the objectives were not
consistent.
2. It appears that physical activity was an outcome variable which was completed
by 204 women. However, data were analyzed based on 512 women.
3. Page 5, 78% reported home internet access when only 50% of participants
own a computer at home.
4. It looks like this was a secondary data analysis. What was the main purpose of
the study?
5. Consort chart should be included.
6. It is unclear if the authors attempted to report cross-sectional or longitudinal
data.
7. What was the proportion of participants who were recruited from SNAP list?
What was the proportion from the flyers posted in other locations?
8. What was the definition of physically activity and how authors defined being
physically active was not clear? Did the authors define these on the online
survey? This is critical because most data reported on tables showed
discrepancies between physically active and physically active at least 30
minutes/day
9. What was the time frame of physical activity? was it within one day, one week,
or…?
10. Data analysis was very difficult to follow and the appropriateness of the
analysis was questionable. For example, t-test was used to analyze categorical
data.
11. How many people responded to the open-ended questions?
12. Page 5, suggest to make the presentation of demographic being consistent
with Table 2.
13. When did the author collect data about weight lose? It was not mentioned but
reported on page 12.
14. The result sessions reported overwhelmed data with much descriptive data
and no focus.
15. One pagesm13-14. Response to about being active. This session was very
difficult to follow. Also, analysis was based on 42 women. This may be under
power due to the small sample size
16. A very significant part of the result session reported “acceptance” of the
program when this was not one of the objectives of this manuscript
17. Numerous tables were presented with lock of focus. Lots of footnotes that
were not indicated in the tables.
Reviewer's report
Title:Effect of menstrual phase on tobacco consumption, craving for smoking,
depression and menstrual phase-associated symptoms in young Japanese
female smokers: A prospective study
Version: 2Date:21 February 2013
Reviewer: Elena Toffol
Reviewer's report:
Effect of menstrual phase on tobacco consumption, craving for smoking,
depression and menstrual phase-associated symptoms in young Japanese
female smokers: A prospective study
The manuscript has been modified accordingly to previous comments and it has
significantly improved. However, I still have some minor concerns. Firstly, even if
the author state that the manuscript has been checked by a native speaker, I
think it is still not very fluent; besides, some grammar and spelling mistakes can
still be found (see below). Also, the discussion section could be further improved
with regards to overall cohesion.
Discretionary revisions:
1. I would prefer the word “women”, or “participants” instead of “females”
throughout the manuscript.
2. Introduction, paragraph 2. The sentence “In their review of the relationship
between smoking and the menstrual cycle, Carpenter et al. [12] suggested that
confirmation of ovulation was insufficient…” could be made clearer by adding,
e.g., “…suggested that in most of the previous studies confirmation….”
3. Methods, Procedure, Confirmation of ovulation: it may be redundant, but for
clarity I would add “during the 2 months of the study period”, or something
similar.
4. Methods, Other study items: the first sentence does not belong to the
“methods” section, I would implement it to the discussion.
5. Discussion, first paragraph: “Previous studies attempted to directly examine
the pharmacological effect of progesterone and/or estrogen on women’s
sensitivity to nicotine…”. Do the authors refer here to endogenous or exogenous
hormones? If exogenous (e.g., hormonal contraception), I would recommend
stating this clearly.
6. Discussion, first paragraph: “…our inclusion criteria involved “do not use
hormonal contraceptive pills”. I would suggest changing the sentence to
something like “women using hormonal contraceptive pills were excluded”, or
“using hormonal contraceptive pills was one of the exclusion criteria”.
Minor essential revisions:
1. Methods, Participants, paragraph 2, line 3: should “include” be “included”?
2. Results, paragraph 2: How about “The number of cigarettes smoked and the
CO concentration were significantly different among the menstrual phases
(F(2,84)=3.178, p=0.007, partial eta-squared=0.081; and F(2,84)=3.161,
p=0.019, partial eta-squared=0.070, respectively)?
3. Results, paragraph 3: “Three symptoms in the menstrual and luteal phases
were significantly higher than those in the follicular phase (Figure 1). In
particularly…”: Should “three” be “these”, or “the”, instead? Also, either
“particularly” or “in particular”.
Level of interest: An article of importance 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:Effect of menstrual phase on tobacco consumption, craving for smoking,
depression and menstrual phase-associated symptoms in young Japanese
female smokers: A prospective study
Version: 2Date:21 February 2013
Reviewer: Tellervo Korhonen
Reviewer's report:
The authors have adequately addressed all my comments and questions as well
as completed them in the revised version of the manuscript.
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 have been consulting for Pfizer in 2011-2012.
Reviewer's report
Title:The CHOICE study: women's perceptions and reasons for choosing the
pill, patch or ring
Version: 2Date:19 November 2012
Reviewer: Lete i Ignacio
Reviewer's report:
I have already reviewed several papers related to the CHOICE Project. The
CHOICE Project is well known for me. Concerning this paper, there are not
objections to be published: the methodology is well explained, the results are well
presented and the conclusions are adequate. The only concern I have is about
the iterative publications based in the same study, but this is an Editor business.
There are more than 5 papers published based in those study.
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 do not have any conflict of interest
Reviewer's report
Title:Women's perceptions and reasons for choosing the pill, patch, or ring in
the CHOICE study: a cross-sectional survey of contraceptive method selection
after counseling
Version: 3Date:1 February 2013
Reviewer: Rebecca Say
Reviewer's report:
The authors have responded adequately to my previous comments.
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:Views of general practitioners on the role of CA125 in primary care to
diagnose ovarian cancer
Version: 2Date:3 July 2012
Reviewer: Adeola Olaitan
Reviewer's report:
This is a well written manuscript with a clear question defined. The methods
employed i.e. - an internet-based survey are appropriate to address the
questions. That said, I am not entirely clear what the overall objective is - an
audit of GP awareness of NICE guidelines OR an audit of GP awareness of
symptoms and investigations of suspected ovarian cancer?
In addition, an 8% response rate can hardly be said to be representative,
particularly as, as demonstrated in this study, the majority of GPs will see and
investigate one or two cases of suspected ovarian cancer per year.
The results are presented in a clear & concise fashion and the discussion is well
considered. The range of references quoted is appropriate.
However, for this survey to have impact, I think it would need to be repeated to
ensure a higher response rate.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
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 I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Views of general practitioners on the role of CA125 in primary care to
diagnose ovarian cancer
Version: 3Date:30 September 2012
Reviewer: Adeola Olaitan
Reviewer's report:
My initial concern was the low response rate and this remains unchanged. he
authors have however addressed the issue more thoroughly in their discussion.
Major Compulsory Revisions
The research question/null hypothesis still requires better definition: is this an
audit of NICE guidelines; an audit of GPs' awareness of ovarian cancer
symptoms or an attempt to assess the impact of NICE guidelines on referral
pathways.This must be clear and unequivocal.
Minor Revisions
Paragraph 2: sentence beginning 'There are few published studies....' The
sentence is too long and the meaning obscured by having 2 separate statements
linked by 'and' The authors should either replace 'and' with 'in addition' or begin a
new sentence 'Ca125 is yet to be shown to function....'
Once this is addressed I think this article should be puclished as it is topical and
relevant.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Views of general practitioners on the role of CA125 in primary care to
diagnose ovarian cancer
Version: 3Date:5 October 2012
Reviewer: Marcia Hall
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for asking me to look at this paper again about the impact of the NICE
guidelines (CG122) on the diagnostic pathway for ovarian cancer in the West
Midlands. In my previous review of this manuscript, I pointed out that the major
flaw of the entire paper was that in the MOnkey survey used, the authors omitted
a major constellation of symptoms for women with possible ovarian cancer - i.e. a
change in bowel habit. My review of this paper prompted me to examine the
published guidelines again and it is apparent how this glaring omission occurred.
The list of symptoms that was used by the authors is clearly bullet pointed above
the subsequent statement about the importance of bowel symptoms. Clearly the
authors have faithfully incorporated the bullet pointed list and overlooked the vital
sentence below this defining the role of change in bowel habit in this diagnosis.
The omission of this vital part of symptomatology reflects the poor understanding
of pathogenesis of this disease. However it is pleasing to see acknowledgement
of the 'advanced' nature of fallopian tube cancer at diagnosis and although I
entirely agree that detecting this will not change the staging or result in more
lives 'saved' it will at least help patients understand their worrying symptoms and
allow them to access appropriate therapeutic strategies to maintain / improve
their quality of life. Discussion of the omission of the bowel symptomatology in
the paper might make the paper more acceptable
Sadly, this omission makes their paper invalid and not worth publishing unless
they were to repeat their survey in the same population with the inclusion of the
bowel symptom / change in bowel habit symptoms. This might make a much
more interesting publication allowing more time for the guidelines to be
embedded within the GP community and prompt discussion / speculation about
the interpretation of the addition of bowel symptoms in the outcome of the
responses. It is encouraging to see mention of the GP on the NICe panel for the
preparation of this document, who had a vociferous and useful contribution to
make, along with the radiology expert, the local gynaecology surgeon and the
two patient representatives, when discussing the "diagnosis" part of this
publication. The remaining 4 secondary care experts concentrated appropriately
on the 'management' aspect.
Reviewer's report
Title:Views of general practitioners on the role of CA125 in primary care to
diagnose ovarian cancer
Version: 4Date:3 January 2013
Reviewer: Adeola Olaitan
Reviewer's report:
authors have addressed the points I raised and I am happy for the paper to be
accepted
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:Factors Influencing Diagnosis and Treatment of Osteoporosis after a
Fragility Fracture among Postmenopausal Women in Asian Countries: a
Retrospective Study
Version: 1Date:16 July 2012
Reviewer: Chia-Liang Ang
Reviewer's report:
Major revisions
This study uses a review of medical charts and an interview with the patient in
order to establish the practice patterns of managing osteoporosis in an Asian
population of postmenopausal women who have had a hip fragility fracture.
The fact that only 13.2% answered yes to "history of fragility fracture" despite the
fact that all the patients were admitted for hip fragility fracture cast doubt on the
accuracy of the patients' responses. If this question had been about a history of
fragility fracture before the patients' admissions for hip fragility fracture, I do not
see how this history would be relevant since they all subsequently had hip
fragility fractures. Therefore, the conclusions in relation to the history of hip
fracture cannot hold ground.
The results in the text and the tables do not tally. In the text, it is stated that
13.2% had a history of fragility fractures; in the table it is 16.1%.
Are the types of payment options standard across the different countries?
Otherwise, there might be bias. Could this be the reason why Table 3 shows that
there are various associations between payment options and the outcome
measures which may be difficult to explain, eg: 100% social insurance is
associated with lower OR of having osteoporosis medication, versus other type
of insurance is associated with higher OR of having osteoporosis medication.
Again, the accuracy of this survey method is questionable as illuminated by: 316
patients answered that they have had a BMD measurement, whereas Table 4
shows only 256 patients factually had a BMD.
The exclusion of patients who did not answer may introduce bias.
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:Factors Influencing Diagnosis and Treatment of Osteoporosis after a
Fragility Fracture among Postmenopausal Women in Asian Countries: a
Retrospective Study
Version: 1Date:2 December 2012
Reviewer: Tobias De Villiers
Reviewer's report:
All revisions are discretionary and included as notes to the attached PDF file
The suggestions are made in order to make it easier for the reader to grasp the
essence of this work. The article suffers from the problems typically associated
with a retrospective study and in my humble opinion the data is overanalyzed
(especially pertaining to the preceived diagnosis of osteoporosis) The main
message though is important and supports findings world wide: the evaluation
and treatment of patients following any fragility fracture and especially hip
fracture is poor and needs to be addressed.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
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:
COF: None
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence of lymphedema in women under treatment for breast cancer in
a referral center in southeastern brazil
Version: 2Date:24 July 2012
Reviewer: Electra Paskett
Reviewer's report:
N/A
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 lymphedema in women under treatment for breast cancer in
a referral center in southeastern brazil
Version: 3Date:29 August 2012
Reviewer: Aase S, A Sagen
Reviewer's report:
Reviewer’s report
Reviewer: A Sagen
Title: Prevalence of lymphedema in women under treatment for breast cancer in
a referral center in southeastern Brazil
Specific comments and recommendations, second revision
1. Material
The description of the material still does not inform about the age as described in
the response letter 56 to 75 years. In table I, the category 57 to 99 years is thus
misleading.
2. Measurements
OK, but still vague. There are many VAS scales used for measuring pain; 100
mm or categorized into 10 or 5? The time interval for the registration is very
important. Did the patients measure the pain for the last 14 days? last year? the
last 5 years? Or present pain?
3. Discussion
The reported prevalence of lymphedema is very high (almost 45%) compared to
other high quality reports in this field (around 15 to 20 % in patients going
through axillary lymph node dissection) 1 2, 3.
The authors do not fully discuss important matters and weaknesses of the
investigation; like prevalence of arm lymphedema without prospective
(preoperative) assessments. As described in the previous review, a relative
arm-volume (to control arm volume) would have been a much more valid criterion
for measurement of arm lymphedema.
Do the surgery methods used in Brazil differ from the surgery methods used in
US or Europe? Can this be the reason for the different prevalence?
This study is too important not to take these considerations into a revision.
4. Hypothesis
Normally, the background/introduction chapter ends with a hypothesis. This is
missing. Hypotheses make the readers understand the scientific aim of the study
and therefore also explain the choice of statistical analyses that are used.
Reference List
1. McLaughlin SA, Wright MJ, Morris KT, Giron GL, Sampson MR, Brockway JP,
Hurley KE, Riedel ER, Van Zee KJ. Prevalence of lymphedema in women with
breast cancer 5 years after sentinel lymph node biopsy or axillary dissection:
objective measurements. J Clin Oncol 2008;26:5213-9.
2. Ancukiewicz M, Miller CL, Skolny MN, O'Toole J, Warren LE, Jammallo LS,
Specht MC, Taghian AG. Comparison of relative versus absolute arm size
change as criteria for quantifying breast cancer-related lymphedema: the flaws in
current studies and need for universal methodology. Breast Cancer Res Treat
2012;135:145-52.
3. Lawenda BD, Mondry TE, Johnstone PA. Lymphedema: a primer on the
identification and management of a chronic condition in oncologic treatment. CA
Cancer J Clin 2009;59:8-24.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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