Reviewer's report
Title:A study of Gabonese women's knowledge regarding: Human papillomavirus
infection, Cervical cancer and Pap smear screening
Version:2Date:5 February 2015
Reviewer: Channa Schmeink
Reviewer's report:
1. Is the question posed by the authors well defined?
Yes
2. Are the methods appropriate and well described?
Yes
3. Are the data sound?
Yes
4. Do the figures appear to be genuine, i.e. without evidence of manipulation?
Yes
5. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data
deposition?
Yes
6. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported
by the data?
No
7. Are limitations of the work clearly stated?
No
8. Do the authors clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building,
both published and unpublished?
Yes
9. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found?
Title: NO
Abstract: Yes
10. Is the writing acceptable?
Needs improvement
Major Compulsory Revisions
General:
– There is no hypothesis
– I miss a description of how screening voor cervical cancer is now organised in
Gabon, and if HPV vacciantion is available
– Authors should mention in the discussion that de sample of women is not
representative for the population since there is a high level og highly educated
women.
Riskfactors of HPV/Cervical cancer. Describe if this was an open question or
multiple choise. Please discuss the correct and incorrect answers and refer to
literature about the riskfactors.
Line 65-67: 'The implication of health staff and Gabonese media must be a
centerpiece in the effort to inform the population for reduces the burden of this
disease in Gabon. '
This is not a conclusion of the data and this reasearch does not support that this
is the best method to provide information. It is however necessary to inform the
women. So the authors should say that they suggest this method....
Line 162: However, most of the women were well educated as 63.7% of them
reporting university level # this should be mentioned in the discussion, as this is
probably not a representative group of women for the population of Gabon.
Line 249: 'Gabonese media was a poor source of information' This is not a result
from this study, one may say that women did not get their information from
Gabonese media.
Line 250-251: 'In regard to source of information of cervical cancer, it climbs to
the second place. ' Climbs to second place? Who climbs?
Line 252-253: 'absence of real cervical cancer screening '. Why real cervical
cancer? Is there also an unreal cervical cancer?
Table 5 + Methods Line 139-140: knowleagable and unknowleagable
How is this created? When was someone knowleageable? In the Methods secion
it describes the number of correct answers for the level of knowledge, but this is
three categories. Please explane.
Minor Essential Revisions
Line 40: please mention the incident percentage
Line 53: followed in the same proportion (13.6%) by …. just say 'followed by
..(%), … (%)' this will make it easier to read.
Line 59: 'this disease' do you mean cervical cancer? Just write cervical cancer
since in the previous lines cervical cancer is not mentioned.
Line 60: 'Interestingly, knowledge was not associated with educational level and
the occupation.' Perhaps not necessary to mention in the abstract. Although it is
remarkable and needs discussion! Probably this had to do with the amount of
students etc.
Line 84: 'most than' English!
Line 89: 'However' ? English
Line 107: 'so far' ? English
Line 115: 'Women aged 16 years or above ' was there an age limit? What was
the age of the oldest women?
Line 135: 'were create' should be 'were created' English
Line 167-168: 'was overwhelming to that of women who had never heard of '
Would not use the term overwhelming.
'To that' of does not seem to be correct English.
Line 179-182: English
Line 196: 93.58% I suggest that 93,6% would be better since all other
percentages mentioned are with zero or just one number after the point.
Line 201: 'it' do you mean 'its' ? English
Line 217-221: Please rephrase-rewrite. English.
Line 227-229: Please rephrase-rewrite. English.
Line 234: 'may suggest like '. English
Line 238: 'undergone'. English
Line 244: 'to an Australian'. English
General: Layout of the tables
Table 2:
– please add the number and percentage of women who ever had hear about
cervical cancer.
Table 3:
– please add the number and percentage of women who did not hear about the
pap smear test.
– I haven’t financial means : is not correct English
Table 4: Missing the number of participants/responders
Table 5: 'one childeren' is not correct English.
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:
'I declare that I have no competing interests'