Reviewer's report
Title:Factors Influencing the Conduct of Maternal and Perinatal Death Reviews
in Oyam District, Uganda: A cross-sectional study.
Version:3Date:2 July 2015
Reviewer: Jashvant Poeran
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
Methodology
1. Line 130: selected based on what?
2. Line 131: please elaborate on what HC IV and HC III stands for
3. What is the total number of hospitals and health facilities in this district?
Results
4. Line 207-214: start with what data is in Table 2 and try to summarize that.
There’s a lot of unnecessary prose now. Also, a lot of statements without any
numbers backing this up.
5. Line 215-219: listing all variables of interest is something that needs to be in
the Methods section, not the results.
6. It seems that 66 cases were identified; please explicitly state so in the Results
7. The title for table 2 and table 3 should reflect that it is the view of the 66
healthcare workers interviewed. This is not clear now and very confusing, also in
the manuscript text.
8. In general you talk about univariable and bivariate analyses. The 'univariable'
analysis you present seems to me just an overview of percentages. Table 4 and
Table 5 appear to represent univariable analyses with a simple chi2-test. Please
change accordingly.
Minor Essential Revisions
Abstract
1. First sentence: ‘experience’ should be ‘experiences’
2. What does MPDR stand for? The letters do not coincide with the explanation
you give.
3. Line 60: change to ‘…MPDR was obtained from key informants…’
4. Also, keep in mind that when you introduce an abbreviation which you do with
KI in line 50 it is not necessary to spell out the whole word after that (as you do in
line 60)
5. Line 60: it is not clear what you mean by ‘sensitized’ please use a different
word or explain better
6. Line 60: remove ‘that’
7. Line 69: ‘..reviews: by..’ should be ‘…reviews by:…’
Background
8. Line 93: don’t start any sentence with ‘And’. Please use something like
‘Additionally,’
9. Line 97: ‘perinatal’ instead of ‘peri-natal’
10. Line 105: what does UNFPA stand for? In general, you are using a lot of
abbreviations which really compromises readability. Please use only those which
you intend you use throughout the manuscript text.
11. Maybe some additional words on Oyam district, adding that it is in north
Uganda for example. You go in more detail in the Methods, but would be good to
start off with a little bit of info after you first mention Oyam. Most of the readers
will not have heard of this and would help to engage them.
Methodology
12. Line 123/124: change into: ‘…and a perinatal mortality rate of 43.8/1,000 live
births, with the proportion of health facility deliveries estimated at 38.9%.’
13. Line 128: what does ‘in-charges’ mean? Are you referring to leadership?
Maybe a better word to use.
14. Line 135: ‘purposively’ # change into ‘specifally’
15. Line 248: ‘the association’ instead of ‘association’
16. Results overall: not necessary to present Chi2 statistics, just the p-value is
enough
17. Line 300: ‘The majority’, same for line 317
18. Line 331-332: this is not proper English
19. Line 350: for an outside reader it is not clear what Pathfinder is
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