Title: The Intersection of Intimate Partner Violence with Sexual Reproductive Health in the
Pacific: findings from a Kiribati population study
Version: 1 Date: 27 Feb 2024
Reviewer's report:
OVERALL
This paper is interesting, and I did not know anything about Kiribati people so I enjoyed it.
Overall, the paper needs significant editing at the sentence and paragraph levels.
The methodology is too descriptive without enough justification for why we need this. I would
have preferred to see regressions run unless there is a very clear rationale for presenting more
descriptive findings.
The aim is confusing as written. You write, “This paper aims to explore how SRH intersects
with IPV among young Kiribati women; including need for and access to family planning, and
postnatal care.”
-How can you do this if you are not running regressions? You are not showing the intersections
at all, you are just presenting descriptive statistics and comparing groups.
The reference style is inconsistent and confusing in places, I suggest picking a style and using
it consistently.  I found the overall formatting and references to be sloppy.
For me there are way too many tables (12) and findings, it was hard to understand why you
looked at so many things.
There are also issues with how the paper is framed. In the field of SRH, we are moving
towards centering people’s experiences and preferences for sexual and reproductive health and
health care. The citation of “Traditional methods” is outdated, and I think this framing itself is
actually outdated and should be changed. From my perspective, it would be better to talk about
effectiveness, but without any hierarchy. I think these papers could provide helpful background:
https://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(18)30096-9/fulltext
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/sifp.12228
Data is plural, so needs to be corrected.
LANGUAGE
The phrase “significant prevalence of domestic violence” is a bit awkward, so I suggest rewriting
to “a high prevalence of domestic violence” or something similar
You use domestic violence and intimate partner violence, choose one term and stick with it.
Intimate partner violence is more widely accepted in the field, so I would go with that.
ON SPECIFIC SECTIONS
Introduction
I recommend the authors provide more context about Kiribati in the first few sentences, since I
don’t believe that it is a well-known country and part of the argument set up in the first sentence
is about geographic isolation. I think you should probably have a “Study setting” sub-header or
something of the sort. .
Table 1 does not actually present findings by region, so the title is misleading.
Methods:
I think there needs to be a section on data separate from methods. We need more information
on the MICS modules.
The methods are not well-explained. One sentence on chi-squared tests is not enough. What is the
justification for using descriptive methodology? For those not familiar with the methodology,
what do they show us?
Overall, the measures/analysis section is confusing.
Intimate partner violence is not defined in the measures section.
Findings:
The findings seem to be more like a report, I don’t think they are appropriate for a peer-reviewed
journal article. They are all over the place and it is unclear how all of these things are connected.
I don’t think 4,150 were interviewed, I think the appropriate language is that they were surveyed
or that Surveys were administered to 4,150. Saying they were interviewed gives the misleading
impression that you conducted qualitative research.
Why does Table 1 combine ever-partnered or sexually active in the last year? For both violence
and contraception, these groups are quite different.
The way the findings are presented is confusing, I don’t think everyone will understand chi-
squared tests.
I do not think you should combined women using traditional methods with the “no method”
group based on sample size alone. Using a “traditional method” and no method are not the same.
Also, people using no method can be their preferred method. I suggest making no method a
separate category from traditional method in Table 4.
Discussion
I do not think you highlight the issues for remote women face clearly enough, even though you
bring it up in the discussion. I think you spend way too much space summarizing the findings,
without connecting them to existing studies and findings.
Similar to the rest of the paper, the discussion was all over the place. What is the gap in the
literature? How does this paper contribute to what we already know? I think one compelling
argument could be made around the extremely high prevalence of violence and remoteness of
this place, but you only use the word "remote" 5 times in the paper and I think you need more.
Specific comments
“This research resulted in a whole of government commitment to eliminate violence against
women and girls including the establishment of a dedicated Ministry for Women, Youth, Sports
and Social Affairs (MWYSSA) in 2013 [32], p.5/33).”
-This sentence does not make sense. It is missing a word.
“Around half (51%) of ever-partnered Kiribati women experienced physical violence from a
current or former partner in their lifetime with one quarter experiencing sexual violence (24%)
and almost half (46%) psychological violence over their lifetime.”
-This is confusing. Usually, lifetime violence is not measured by a current or former partner;
someone is asked if they ever experienced it (such as in the DHS). Also, why is psychological
violence only measured over lifetime?