Title: Menstrual Hygiene Management and Associated Factors among Adolescent School Girls
in Gursum District, Eastern Ethiopia 2021.a cross-sectional study
Version: 2 Date: 20 Nov 2022
Reviewer's report:
This article investigated the determinant factors of menstrual hygiene management practices
among adolescent school girls in Gursum District, Eastern Ethiopia.  The authors found that
having knowledge about menstruation before experiencing menarche, living in rural areas, and
having an infection around the vagina during menstruation play critical roles in determining
menstrual hygiene management practices among adolescent school girls. However, to enhance
the quality of the paper, authors may consider the following:
1. Title: do you mean "colon" rather than "full stop" on line 2?
2. Author's affiliation: First letter capital should be uniform for all the institutions on lines 6 -12.
3. Abstract: do you mean "do" rather than "did" on line 23?
- "Seventy-six" in words rather than "76" on line 39.
- Note: the brackets are not uniform on line 41
4. Introduction: do you mean "do" rather than "did"? "faced" rather than "face" on lines 53 and
61, respectively?
- Not sure of the clarity of the sentence on line 75. Rewrite for clarity.
- Cross-check line 77. Do you mean "inadequate" rather than "adequate"?
5. Study setting and design: what is the relevance of the statement about altitude to menstruation?
Delete. Line 94.
6. Participants: The first three statements on lines 98 to 102 were repetitions. Rewrite.
7. Sample size and sampling: "50%" in words rather than a figure on line 108.
- The authors indicated that they "could not find similar study conducted prior to the study" on
line 109. They may wish to be more specific to suggest if they mean studies in Ethiopia, East
Africa, or the whole world.
8. Lines 115-116 – the authors may wish to be more explicit on how the "sections and then
individual female students" were selected in their study.
9. Data processing and analysis: add a "comma" after "completeness"; "variables" rather than
"variable; "showed" rather than "has shown" Lines 126 and 128.
10. Authors should check the statement on lines 135 – 139. They may wish to state the outcome
variable measurement very clearly.
11. "Results" instead of "Result"- line 142; capitalize "O" in "out"- line 145; "knew" rather than
"know" line 156.
- Authors indicated, "…use only underwear during menstruation" how possible is this? Line 162
- Authors may consider reporting lines 161 -168 using past tense.
12. Discussion: "Overall, this study investigated the MHM practice and found it to be a
determinant factor among young adolescent school girls in eastern Ethiopia, Gursum district in
2021" determinant factor of what? The authors may wish to rewrite this statement for clarity.
Line 205.
- Do you mean "previous studies" rather than "previous study"? line 208
- Capitalize "O" with space, line 210; space "perhaps" line 212.
- “[AOR 0.32 CI: (0.173355, 0.6047782)]”, expunge statistics.
- Consider "was" instead of "is"; "full stop" before "furthermore" on lines 225 and 227,
respectively.
- "This could be explained by having relevant information about MHM enables adolescent girls
to practice safe MHM". Check the statement for clarity – line 228.
- "was also" rather than "has also been", line 230.
- expunge "(n = 76, 13.17%)", note that "13.17%" is not the same as 14%; "had" instead of
"have" line 238.
- "cause effect relationship" Any reason for this? Line 243.
13. Conclusion: Authors may wish to know that a recommendation is to be written based on the
study's findings, lines 250-252.
13. Limitation of the study: delete the "full stop", line 256.
14. Consent for publication: "were" rather than "is", line 275.
15. Author's contribution: Authors may wish to provide information about the author's
contributions regarding conceptualization, design, and data collection.
16. References: Authors may wish to adhere to referencing style used by the journal, BMC, and
delete all repeated dates.
- “Ethiopia” rather than “Thiopia”, “UNICEF” instead of “UNCEF”, “construction” instead of
“construation”, lines 321 and 235.