Title: The Preferences of Breast Cancer Patients Regarding a Digital Social Care Platform
Version: 1 Date: 20 May 2024
Reviewer:  Camelia Rohani
Reviewer's report:
This is a review on the article with the title of “The Preferences of Breast Cancer Patients
Regarding a Digital Social Care Platform.” It was interesting to read it, but there are several
major and minor issues that the authors should answer them.
1. What were the inclusion and exclusion criteria for sampling in the study? How and where
did the authors approach the samples? It seems they did a “consecutive sampling” that should
be mentioned in the text.
2. The time period of sampling is too long (November 2022 to January 2023-2024??). How did
it happen? Do you mean November 2022 to January 2024?
3. Did the authors explain the objectives of the study to the participants? Before beginning of
the study, did the participants sign the informed consent form to participate in the study? They
should be mentioned in the methods section.
4. In Table 2, the clinical characteristics of the participants should be specified, at least, type of
treatment received after the diagnosis, time passed since diagnosis…??
The authors mentioned: “Regarding employment, the majority were employed (68.99%) …”
Based on the context of the country, it looks strange. Normally, the number of housewives is
high. Did the authors recruit literate-employed women?
5. Why the significance level on p-value is equal to 0.05 and not less than 0.05?
6. “Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) questionnaire” is a researcher-made tool? How was its
validity and reliability? Were they (validity and reliability of the questionnaire) checked before
taking the real sample of the study?
Demographic items come in the first part of the questionnaire not in the end. How did the
participants respond to the questions? When? Where? Response rate? Did the author help them?
7. I suggested the authors display some parts of the software on the mobile screen in a picture
in the supplementary file.
8. What was the source of the scenarios? (book? Article? Meeting discussions?). They are very
similar. Were these scenarios accompanied by examples?. It is not very easy to understand them
and their differences.
9. Table 3. Regression Modelling of Hypothetical Scenarios: Are “estimated coefficients” the
same as “unstandardized coefficients”? It should be written in the Table 3. Also, interpretation
of these values should be written very clear in the results section.
10. A section named “Results” should be added in the text of the article.
11. The discussion of the article should start with the purpose of the study and the results should
not be repeated.
12. What were the limitations of the study?
13. In the abstract: “Breast cancer is a multifaceted and demanding condition that impacts a
large number of people globally.” “People” should be replaced by “women.”
14. In the abstract: “In addition to medical aspects, breast cancer patients face various emotional,
psychological, and social issues throughout their journey.” “Their journey” should be replaced
by “their disease journey.”
15. In the abstract: “This study aimed to elicit the preferences of breast cancer patients…” “To
elicit” should be replaced by “to explore.”
16. In the Abstract: “A sample of 158 cancer patients diagnosed with a primary diagnosis of
breast cancer at a public hospital affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Iran,
….” “A public hospital affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Iran,..” should
be replaced by “one university hospital.”
17. The language of the article needs to be carefully checked and revised by a qualified native
person. This article has a simple translation from the original language to English.
Best Regards.