JerMa88/BMC_Womens_Health_Peer_Reviews huggingface dataset:
Reviewer's report
Title:High coffee consumption and different brewing methods in relation to
postmenopausal endometrial cancer risk in the Norwegian Women and Cancer
Study: a population-based prospective study.
Version:2Date:10 December 2013
Reviewer: uzochukwu aniebue
Reviewer's report:
Sampling is central to success in cohort studies. An investigator intending to
determine the generalizability of this study would be interested in having the
following answered:
1. A) What method of randomisation was done. Were inclusion and exclusion
criteria specified prior to or subsequent to randomisation.
B) What were the authors describing as inclusion in the study in "several waves"
and how was selection bias avoided.
C) How long were the respective waves followed up.
2. Cups of coffee may contain different quantities of coffee except were
prepackaged or specified. Consequently a cup may equate 3-4 cups depending
on the consumption tendencies of the individuals. Was an attempt made to
account for these differences.
3) What effort were made to exclude recall bias with respect to coffee drinking
habit. Was the any attempt at validation of the respondents baseline claims made
during the course of this study.
4) Since this is primarily an epidemiological study, professional statistical editing
is recommend.
Conclusion.
The level of evidence is moderate. Interest is modest. I have no conflicts of
interest.
Major Revision.
The authors need to review the research method and make it explicit.
Reviewer's report
Title:Exploring Australian Aboriginal Women's Experiences of Menopause: a
Descriptive Study
Version: 1Date:12 October 2013
Reviewer: Ko-En Huang
Reviewer's report:
The authors aimed ot evaluate the Austrlian aboriginal women's experiences of
menopause by interviewing 25 participants from mid-west region of Western
Australia.
1). The intension is very good in exploring the menopause perceptions of
minority people with different cultures and traditions. Some results from this study
were interesting and useful for understanding of individual feelings about the
menopsue.
2) The number of participants, 25 women, is way less than the numbers needed
for representating the opinions of this group of aboriginal women. Moreover, 8/25
were premenopausal without mention of their age ranges and only mentioned in
the Methods as :over the age of 18 years".
This makes the results of this study even more difficult to be evaluated.
3). The participants were recruited from the waiting room of the health service.
This may apprently cause bias and lack of generalization of the study.
4) The "Theoretical Framework" is nothing to do with the Methods of this study.
5). One of the serious problem of this study is that the opinions of those women
are individual feelings and situations, which, along with small numbers of women
studied, can not represent those of aboriginal women.
6) The percentages of symptoms under Attitide to Menopause section (no page
numbers shown in the manuscript) included 8 premenopausl women, which is
not appropriate.
7) Many of the Discussions are not based on the findings or results of this study.
Level of interest: An article of insufficient interest to warrant publication in a
scientific/medical journal
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declair that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Exploring Australian Aboriginal Women's Experiences of Menopause: a
Descriptive Study
Version:2Date:28 December 2013
Reviewer: Sarah Larkins
Reviewer's report:
I believe that the authors have adequately addressed my comments and would
recommend that the article be published.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence, impacts and medical managements of premenstrual syndrome
among female students: cross-sectional study in college of health science,
Mekelle university, Mekelle, northern Ethiopia
Version:4Date:25 December 2013
Reviewer: Manee Rattanachaiyanont
Reviewer's report:
Comments
1. Is the question posed by the authors well defined?
Yes, the authors would like to determine the prevalence, impacts and medical
managements of PMS on female students of College of Health Science students,
Mekelle University
2. Are the methods appropriate and well described?
No. Although the author clearly stated that they conducted a cross-sectional
survey, there was inadequate information regarding the reliability and validity of
the tool (questionnaire) used for the survey. This would affect the reliability of the
main outcome (prevalence of PMS). Moreover, the exclusion criteria were not
appropriate; as the authors should exclude the students who had irregular
menstrual cycle (probably had anovulation) or were current users of hormonal
contraception. The analysis to demonstrate the correlation between various
symptoms and PMS was not appropriate, as the symptoms were components of
PMS.
3. Are the data sound?
The data are probably not sound because of the defect in the Materials and
Methods as described in item no 2.
4. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data
deposition?
Yes.
5. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported
by the data?
Yes. However, as the data were not reliable, the conclusions were questionable.
6. Are limitations of the work clearly stated?
No. The authors did not mention the limitations.
7. Do the authors clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building,
both published and unpublished?
Yes. However, the authors need to cite more relevant references.
8. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found?
Yes.
9. Is the writing acceptable?
No. The writing was somewhat redundant, had inconsistency in format (e.g.
tense and use of capital letters) and needed correction of grammar. The
Background was too long, reviewing some literatures that were not necessary for
the study. The Discussion had many unnecessary repetitions of data in the
Results. References were not written in standard format and had inconsistent
pattern.
Major compulsory revisions are needed for items 2, 3 and 9.
Minor essential revisions and discretionary revisions are noted in the attached
pdf file (comment in the manuscript)
The manuscript is not suitable for publication at this form. However, after major
revision by giving more information about the questionnaire, cleaning the data,
and using the appropriate statistics, the manuscript might be acceptable for
publication.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence, impacts and medical managements of premenstrual syndrome
among female students: cross-sectional study in college of health science,
Mekelle university, Mekelle, northern Ethiopia
Version:4Date:4 January 2014
Reviewer: Desalegn Zegeye
Reviewer's report:
To : the Editor
BMC Women Health
Name of Reviewer: Desalegn Tegabu Zegeye
Authors: Fikru W Tolossa and Mebratu L Bekele
Title: Prevalence, impacts and medical managements of premenstrual syndrome
among female students: cross-sectional study in college of health science,
Mekelle university, Mekelle, northern Ethiopia
Reviewer's report:
This is an interesting manuscript that needs further work before acceptance for
publication.
1. There are a few typos and language-style problems that need to be reviewed
carefully.
2. It would be better if introduction is reviewed again and shortened because of
redundant information and inclusion of literature review in the introduction
section.
3. The sampling strategy is not clear. If both systematic and cluster sampling
technique was used, a design effect should be considered.
4. The introduction needs to provide information about ‘PMS is not a public
health concern in Ethiopia”
5. Some variables (eg. Weight, height,..) were shown in the tables but not
reported in the result section. How such variables were also collected is not
mentioned in the methods section.
6. The questions on menstrual pattern (duration and cycle length) are not good
enough to detect variation. The authors use a cut of point of 28 days cycle length
which is not true always.
7. The tables need to be redone. Table 6, 7, 8 are not clear.
8. Rather than presenting p values and chi-square values as measures of
association would the authors provide odds ratios for example?
9. The discussion section is too long. The author is advised to select few
variables and critically comment on that.
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence, impacts and medical managements of premenstrual syndrome
among female students: cross-sectional study in college of health science,
Mekelle university, Mekelle, northern Ethiopia
Version:6Date:3 March 2014
Reviewer: Nusrat Nisar
Reviewer's report:
I have no objection as the author rectfied all the suggesions given by me.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
No To all Above Questions.
Reviewer's report
Title:Prevalence, impacts and medical managements of premenstrual syndrome
among female students: cross-sectional study in college of health science,
Mekelle university, Mekelle, northern Ethiopia
Version:6Date:5 March 2014
Reviewer: Manee Rattanachaiyanont
Reviewer's report:
I made comments in the manuscript using sticky note function. All of these
comments are minor essential revisions.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Demand for long acting and permanent contraceptive methods and
associated factors among married women of reproductive age group in Debre
Markos Town, North West Ethiopia.
Version:2Date:26 October 2013
Reviewer: Edward T. Dassah
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript seeks to address an important issue in the subject area and if
properly executed can improve contraceptive uptake.
Introduction: The introduction is too long and fails to identify the knowledge gap
the authors are seeking to fill. Why is there the need to assess the demand for
LAPMs and associated factors in the study area?
Methods: The methods are quite well described except for the grammatical errors
(see general comments). See results section for comment on statistical methods.
Results: The results section seems too long with too many tables and figures.
Some results in the text are inconsistent with those in the figures for example;
"Among those who desired to have a child in the future 118 (35.1%) of them
wanted within 2-5 years and 105 (31.25%) wanted after 5 years (Figure 1)"- the
percentages given here are different from those in figure 1. The first sentence
under "Factors associated with demand for long acting and permanent methods"
belongs to the methods section.
Table 6: Since most outcome percentages are more than 10-20% it is
inappropriate to use the odds ratio as the measure of association; the odds no
longer estimates the risk (see Grimes DA & Shulz KF, Making sense of odds and
odds ratios. Obstet Gynecol 2008;111(2 Pt 1):423-6 and Cummings P. The
relative merits of risk ratios and odds ratios. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2009
May;163(5):438-45). I think the authors will need to re-analyse the data using
relative risks which is considered more appropriate in this paper.
Discussion seems ok except for portion relating to the logistic regression analysis
(since those results may be inaccurate.)
Conclusions will partly be based on the results in table 6.
General comment: There are many grammatical errors including tenses making it
difficult to understand sentences.
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Cervical cancer knowledge and screening behaviors among female
university graduates of year 2012 attending national graduate orientation
program, Bhutan
Version:5Date:20 January 2014
Reviewer: Myo-Myo Mon
Reviewer's report:
1. Minor essential revisions are needed
(1) In paragraph (2) under cervical cancer knowledge of results section, the
proportions of respondents who fell under “below average” or “above average”
doesn’t give a total 100% (69.9% and 19.1%)
(2) In paragraph (4) of methods section, it was mentioned as a maximum score
of “8” for knowledge. But, there were 9 questions in Table (2). What is the
discrepancy?
(3) Please kindly check the reference no (9). Name of the journal, issue, etc. are
not mentioned. “Asian Pacific J Cancer Prev, 2009, Vol 10, 1047-1050”
(4) Please check the referencing style
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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'
Reviewer's report
Title:Cervical cancer knowledge and screening behaviors among female
university graduates of year 2012 attending national graduate orientation
program, Bhutan
Version:5Date:26 January 2014
Reviewer: Deepak Gyenwali
Reviewer's report:
Cervical cancer is a public health problem in developing countries. So, this paper
can be considered with some revisions.
major compulsory revisions:
1. Background: requires information on recommended protocol (Both
International and national ) for Pap smear screening, specially focusing on target
group (eg. minimum age, marital status, interval for test) service outlets, service
providers and also historical information of Pap smear services in Bhutan.
2. Methods; calculation of knowledge score is confusing. There are nine
questions with score 1 for each correct questions but author mentioned that
maximum score of 8. This needs to be clarified.
Target group for measuring practice of Pap smear screening is not appropriate.
3. results: Age at exposure/ sexual contact needs to be calculated.
4. Discussion: Discussion should be linked with the national protocol and relevant
national information such as average age at marriage, first intercourse and other
socio-cultural context.
5. Conclusion: Generalization of practice of Pap screening is not relevant in this
study group because most of the respondents are unmarried and of below 25
years of age
Minor essential revisions:
1. method: '...... other important study characteristics .....'- should be specified.
2. Result: ..... indicated no significant difference.....' - clarify if it was statistically
tested.
3. Discussion: ......Nepal [18]....' - Check citation. '......elsewhere [20, 24,25]...'-
correct words.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:The impact of a weight reduction program with and without
meal-replacement on health related quality of life in middle-aged obese females
Version:2Date:12 November 2013
Reviewer: Rebecca Thomson
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions
Why were non-parametric tests used? was the data checked for normality? A
repeated measures ANOVA would be more appropriate. Was weight loss
associated with improvements in HRQOL?
In table 2 were any of the differences in baseline to 12 month different between
groups?
Please include more introduction about why you compared a soy-based meal
replacement and lifestyle program to only a lifestyle program. Why did you
expect higher improvements in women that consumed the meal replacement?
Discussion – paragraph 1 – it states that changes in HRQOL were not
significantly correlated with corresponding changes in other measures, but these
analyses were not reported in the methods or results.
Conclusion – you have reported that meal replacement showed greater
improvement in HRQOL, this is not really true as only 1 of the scores had a
greater increase.
Minor Essential Revisions
Figure 1. Please provide labels for all items on the x axis.
Methods – study overview – please make it clearer that one group made use of
the meal replacement and the other was an age and weight matched group that
did not use the meal replacement.
Please change ‘the amount of protein of this product’ to ‘the amount of protein in
this product’.
Results: paragraph 2 – is the p value indicating that weight loss was significant
for both groups, or that LSD (which I think should be LSMR) is greater than LS?
It then states that it was more pronounced in the LSMR group, but this was not
actually significant.
Paragraph 3 – please provide p values for HRQOL increased in both groups after
12 months.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:The impact of a weight reduction program with and without
meal-replacement on health related quality of life in middle-aged obese females
Version:2Date:28 November 2013
Reviewer: Akira Yamasaki
Reviewer's report:
Major Complusory Revisions
This paper described the effects of the weight reduction programs with and
without meal-replacement on health related quality of life. They showed that the
weight reduction lifestyle program with the addition of a soy-based meal
replacement product (LSMR) was better than the lifestyle program without a
soy-based meal replacement (LS) in the point of weight loss and health related
quality of life. They showed that the replacement of meal would be useful and
simple method for weight reduction of middle aged woman in the large study
population. So, this paper is worth publishing in BMC Women’s health.
Minor Essential Revisions
1. Please describe the abbreviation of T2DM on page 11, line 22.
2. In figure 1 legend, please describe the abbreviation of all dimensions. It is not
clear which compartment or dimension reached the statistical significance level
from the figure. Please put some asterisks.
There is no discretionary revision.
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Reviewer's report
Title:A survey on depression among infertile women in Ghana
Version: 1Date:23 September 2013
Reviewer: Alice D Domar
Reviewer's report:
Major compulsory revisions:
1. there needs to be far more information on how patients were recruited and
what information was shared during the recruitment process. Were the 100
women included in the study the only 100 women recruited? And were they told it
was a study on depression? Because if in fact prospective patients were told they
were being recruited for a study on depression, it is possible that women who
had depressive symptoms would have been more likely (or less) to participate in
the research, thus biasing it in one direction. The prevalence of 62% is high, but
one needs to know if this is the true prevalance in this population, or only in
women who agreed to participate.
Minor essential revisions:
1. needs to be rewritten with proper 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
Reviewer's report
Title:Highly-cited estimates of the cumulative incidence and recurrence of
vulvovaginal candidiasis are inadequately documented
Version: 2Date:8 July 2013
Reviewer: Macit Ilkit
Reviewer's report:
This paper was an excellent review of many aspects of Candida vaginitis. In
addition, I suggest mentioning the need for further studies and proposing a few
directions for these studies.
Level of interest: An article of outstanding merit and interest in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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.
Reviewer's report
Title:Highly-cited estimates of the cumulative incidence and recurrence of
vulvovaginal candidiasis are inadequately documented
Version:2Date:5 November 2013
Reviewer: Ana Paula Sampaio Carvalho
Reviewer's report:
Rathod and Buffler present in their manuscript “Highly-cited estimates of the
cumulative incidence and recurrence of vulvovaginal candidiasis are
inadequately documented” the analysis of the cited estimates of the cumulative
incidence of VVC. The authors present their observations about three main
sentences:
1- 75% of women will experience an episode of vulvovaginal candidiasis in their
lifetimes
2- 50% of initially infected women will experience at least a second episode
3- 5-10% of all women experience recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis
Discretionary Revisions
The manuscript addresses an important problem and is well argued however, the
authors spend to much time detonating these sentences and not debating the
subject with other published data. In the discussion section once more the
authors point other studies mainly in a critical point of view. Is there no reliable
study?
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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
Reviewer's report
Title:Highly-cited estimates of the cumulative incidence and recurrence of
vulvovaginal candidiasis are inadequately documented
Version:3Date:5 January 2014
Reviewer: Betsy Foxman
Reviewer's report:
I stand by my original review
Level of interest: An article of limited interest
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
none
Reviewer's report
Title:Highly-cited estimates of the cumulative incidence and recurrence of
vulvovaginal candidiasis are inadequately documented
Version:3Date:6 January 2014
Reviewer: Ana Paula Sampaio Carvalho
Reviewer's report:
The alterations made by the author are in accordance with my requests and,
since the majority of the requests by the other reviewers were addressed, in my
opinion the manuscript is OK.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
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.