Title: Spirometry Profiles among Pregnant and Non-pregnant African Women: A Cross
Sectional Study
Version: 1 Date: 07 May 2022
Reviewer:  Getahun Fetensa Hirko
Reviewer's report:
Title
Dear Authors congratulate you on your interesting work.
However, the work needs serious English language edition including (grammar, and
punctuation)
The title of the study and the method section is inconsistent I don’t think a cross-sectional study
will answer this objective unless specified if it is comparative?
Additionally, the double population formula has to be applied in sample size calculation if it
is the case.
Abstract
The abstract section of this work is very poorly organized as
What is? Or introduction is long
How? or method is very short
What is there? Or result is very few which cannot convey any meaning here?
So what? or conclusion as well recommendation section is not well stated.
Additionally, there were many abbreviations that halt the message of the work
Rewrite it again.
Overall I am not happy with the method again. But the title somewhat looks- good.
Introduction
This section has to be rephrased.
Objective and Hypothesis section
Dear Author rather than writing in an abstract way.
Better if you separate hypotheses from objectives.
Rewrite your objective by categorizing it into general objectives and specific objectives.
Make it smart as well.
Method
Where was the study conducted? Better if you describe the study area in a way it will be catchy
for the readers.
In line with this better if you add a study period here.
I don’t think this design will answer the objective of your title, please.
If this is the case why didn’t try of another design?
As well this is not a good way of writing source population as it didn’t consider the inclusion
and exclusion criteria of the study.
I kindly request you to add the source population of both groups
Calculated sample size after adjustment were not matching. Including the tense.
What by mean control for you’re here? Nothing was said. If that is the case why you didn’t
consider double population formula?
The heading as well “Then 10 pregnant women were selected using a table of random numbers
on each day until the total sample size was attained.”
I couldn’t get the meaning of this sentence can you rewrite it again or response you need to mean?
There is missed eligibility criteria heading
Under inclusion
You have double exclusion of age below 18 years
I kindly request re-writing of this section
Under your exclusion what does measurement without error implies?
Data collection tool
I think it is mixed up with data quality control. Where do you collect your pre-test? What about
the nature of the population?
Have you considered all groups?
Result
I will not go through this section until the method section is revised.
“969 pregnant women who visited Mnazi Mmoja hospital during the study period were invited
to participate in the study”
What does this sentence imply for this section? Even if it starts with the number.
Discussion section
It repeat the introduction section of the study or the part which have to considered there comes
here. ” To our knowledge, this is the first study on lung function conducted among pregnant
women using spirometry in African settings. Spirometry test values of pregnant women were
compared against values of non-pregnant women rather than comparing against the established
normal range of values. But this study was not without limitations. Non-pregnant healthy women
were likely to hesitate to participate in the study as they would feel a lack of need for tests.
Only women who booked their first visit in their first trimester were included in a study.
Pregnant women were obtained by random sampling while non-pregnant controls were obtained
consecutively. Also, many potential participants hesitated to participate worrying that they were
tested for the Coronavirus. These factors could have influenced the nature of women who
participated in this study and limited our ability to match the characteristics of pregnant women.
Our study was limited to spirometry, therefore, could not explain other observations which
would be well explained by other lung function tests such as measuring static lung volumes.
Also, we did not quantify hormonal effects on the spirometry profile by hormonal assay”
Conclusion
It lacks the focus of the result of the study as it talks about general truth.
The same thing exists within the recommendation