Reviewer's report
Title:Perspectives on cervical cancer screening among educated, Muslim
women in Dubai (UAE) - A qualitative study
Version:2Date:19 June 2015
Reviewer: Kath Peters
Reviewer's report:
Thank you for the opportunity to review this paper that provides unique insights
into cervical screening among women in Dubai. The following comments have
been made with the intention of assisting authors to improve the manuscript.
Major compusory revisions
Participants and recruitment
It is unclear how women were initially recruited. How did they learn about the
study? How were their email addresses accessed?
Further rationale for inclusion and exclusion criteria is required. How were
potential participants screened?
Further information about the venues for interviews is required.
Due to the link between sexual activity and CC, the authors need to explain in
further detail why questions related to personal sexual activity were not asked.
Further detail required regarding how confidentiality was maintained and the
importance of this.
Results
Throughout the findings, Women have been provided with codes which include
either Em or Ex and a number, however table 2 provides only the number of the
interview. Coding needs to be consistent to provide contextual information about
participants.
While the findings are interesting, they are largely descriptive. Further
interpretation of the data would enhance this section.
Minor essential revisions
Although the manuscript is generally well written, it would benefit from close
editing to improve flow and remove minor grammatical errors.
Background
Overuse of the abbreviation CC in this section which tends to read as repetitive.
This could largely be avoided by combining the multiple brief sentences. This
would improve flow of the text.
Setting
Line 136 suggest replace 'males' with 'men'.
Reference list
Inconsistencies in citations included in the reference list. For example,
inconsistent use of capitalisation among titles and journal names. Inconsistencies
in the presentation of journal names, some are abbreviated while others are
written in full.
Discussion
Line 442 - seems contradictory to earlier content in methods that indicates
questions of a personal sexual nature were not asked.
Line 451 and 453 - Suggest remove 'the' prior to society. Also avoid commencing
consecutive sentences with the same word.
Methodological considerations
Much of this section would be better placed under Methods as it largely justifies
choice of methodology and addresses rigour. I would suggest that limitations of
the study should be addressed under a separate heading.
Conclusions
Line 564 The authors state that there is an indication that women who do not visit
gynaecologists are unlikely to be screened. As only 13 women were interviewed,
such generalised statements should not be made. Suggest the authors consider
rewording this statement to acknowledge this as possible, not definite.
Discretionary Revisions
Bracketing, referred to in line 526, is generally associated with Descriptive
Phenomenology - the authors may wish to reconsider the use of this term
considering they propose the use of an interpretivist approach.
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.