Reviewer's report
Title:Characteristics of sexual violence against adolescent girls and adult
women
Version: 1Date:22 January 2013
Reviewer: Polona Selic
Reviewer's report:
- Major Compulsory Revisions
1. Abstract – Introduction:
Please introduce the main issue, i.e. characteristics of sexual violence against
adolescent girls and adult women
2. Abstract – Objective:
Please rewrite according to changes in Abstract - Introduction
3. Abstract – Methods:
According to MeSH database, adolescent is defined as a person 13 to 18 years
of age. Authors are advised to embrace this definition and use it consistently in
the study. Therefore the concept of the study should be reconsidered and
especially data analysis is to be carried out again. If authors insist on the criterion
adopted by the World Health Organization in 1977, a more thorough explanation
in expected in Methods section, paragraph 2.
4. Abstract – Conclusions:
The last sentence is to be clarified - authors are mentioning sex offenders?
5. Key words: “violence against women” and “victims of sexual crime” are
redundant and are not MeSH terms; use only women and/or crime victims
6. Methods:
The text should be organised in subsections, e.g. Procedure and participants,
Measures (or Instruments and measures), Data Analysis.
7. Methods – paragraph 2:
According to MeSH database, adolescent is defined as a person 13 to 18 years
of age. Authors are advised to embrace this definition and use it consistently in
the study. Therefore the concept of the study should be reconsidered and
especially data analysis is to be carried out again. If authors insist on the criterion
adopted by the World Health Organization in 1977, a more thorough explanation
of the grounds is expected. Since authors are refereeing also to the children’s
(human) rights and the protection thereof, the age limit of 18 years for
adolescents would be concordant with United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
8. Results – paragraphs 2-4:
P value is to be added in brackets when describing statistically significant results.
9. Tables:
In Tables (Table 1-3), there is no need to additionally mark non significant
results, i.e. (NS) is redundant.
10. Discussion:
Please refer to Tables – paragraphs 1-9, 11, 12, 13, 14, etc – whenever
discussing results, e.g. While uncles and stepfathers were more common among
females (20.0%), partners or former intimate partners prevailed among adult
women (25.2%) (Table 2).
11. Discussion:
There are no strengths and limitations of the study mentioned.
12. Conclusions:
There are none.
- Minor Essential Revisions
1. Abstract – Results:
Authors are advised to replace the term “author” with the term “perpetrator”
2. Introduction – paragraph 8:
Authors are advised to replace the term “author” with the term “perpetrator”
throughout the whole manuscript (tables included)
3. Results:
M and SD are advised to be presented as M±SD
- Discretionary Revisions
1. Discussion:
Authors are advised to make the Discussion section shorter, to summarise more
and avoid describing results in great detail.
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.