Title: Women’s use of online health and social media resources to make sense of their polycystic
ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis: a qualitative study
Version: 1 Date: 18 Jul 2023
Reviewer's report:
Overview:
This manuscript is a qualitative study exploring women with PCOS’s information seeking
and sense making behaviours using online and social media resources. The research topic is
interesting and the authors certainly reported important findings, which is well summarised in
the conclusion section. However, the reporting of the study currently does not align with the
COREC checklist for qualitative studies and the methods section needed to be expanded with
more details before the paper is suitable for publication. My detailed comments are below.
Major issues:
• Introduction section
o Line 7 – the statement “presence of polycystic ovaries (multiple cysts on one or both
ovaries)” is inaccurate. One of the key features of PCOS is polycystic ovary morphology seen in
ultrasound. The cyst-like appearance is due to multiple antral follicles rather than true ovarian
cysts.
• Methods section
o Authors should report following the COREC checklist and provide more details in the methods
section. For example, the following information is missing:
# Time of recruitment
# How data saturation was reached
# Analysis methods – were the codings cross-checked? Can you provide the coding tree? What
software was used to manage data? Were participants allowed to provide feedback on the
findings?
o The first author declared having PCOS and this was disclosed to the study participants to
build rapport. Characteristics of the other researchers where not described. All researchers of
a qualitative study should evaluate how their personal and professional backgrounds may have
influenced data collection and analysis.
o It is unclear if the participants provided consent
o Regarding the thematic analysis methods, it appears that the researchers try to code the themes
under the framework of 1) information seeking and 2) sense-making practices. This need to be
better clarified in the methods section
o
• Results section
o Demographic data of the participants lacking and this can interfere with how readers
interpret the findings. For eg. In line 238, the authors stated a participant was a researcher and
can understand peer-reviewed journal articles which give more reliable information. But the
occupation and background of other participants were not given.
o Lines 180-184 – the quotes do not seem to support the subtheme “lack of information from
health practitioners drives independent information seeking”. The quotes appear to describe how
women feel about receiving information about PCOS. Suggest putting in other quotes to better
support the theme.
o Providing a supplementary table for more quotes under each main and sub-theme will be very
helpful
• Discussion section
o The authors should discuss the step taken to establish trustworthiness and validity of the study
Minor issues:
• Given that the audience of the journal are mainly clinicians or academics, I would suggest
using more official terms rather than layman terms throughout the text. For example
o Line 9 – change “excess hair growth” to “hirsutism”
o Line 6-7 – change “high levels of androgens” to “hyperandrogenism”
• Abstract – the results section can be clearer to state the 2 main themes and maybe subthemes
identified. The conclusion in the abstract is also too broad and can be smore specific to the
findings of the study.