Reviewer’s report
Title: 
Exploring Barriers to Pap smear Test in Iranian Women: A Qualitative
Study
Version: 
1 
Date: 
12 Nov 2020
Reviewer's report:
Exploring Barriers to Pap smear Test in Iranian Women: A Qualitative Study
33/69 references are older than 5 years
16. change to sexually transmitted infections from genital infections
20. "The average age of infection among Iranian women is 52.2 years" I can't tell
if you are referring to incidence of cancer or HPV infection. If HPV infection
move the sentence up, if not, please clarify
27." By women who aged 21 years" (remove who, and replace by with for)
38." do not perform this test" should be "do not have this test performed"
41." the painful test" should be "fear of a painful test" you have already
described this test as painless
50. give us an example of the "wrong beliefs"
21 under methods: change to "experiences and inner feelings"
23. "Samples were also selected and interviewed from health professionals such
as physicians,
obstetricians, and health center personnel. Interviews were conducted at the
participants'
homes, the researcher's home, offices, and health centers." 
Are you saying that health professionals referred sample participants, or are you
saying that health professionals also interviewed the participants as well as the
researchers? Please clarify. How many interviews and focus groups were
conducted by the researchers? Were the interviewing healthcare providers part of
the research team? Were they rained by the researchers? 
30." data were collected by the corresponding author who held a PhD student in
health education"
I don't know what this means. Is the corresponding author a PhD student?
34." Purposeful sampling", use purposive sampling
41. should be "not to interfere in their presumptions" 
29 under Improper behavior
I don't know what this sentence means. Please clarify. "This situation is
exacerbated especially in the case of free screening plans when people do not
actually undertake no cost."
32 "intimate interactions with women on the part of personnel and physicians
encourage a…" please change the term "intimate interactions" in English that
connotes more than a professional relationship, possibly romantic or sexual. 
45. "A large proportion of women were unaware of PS, its functions and
performance, and positive outcomes." What proportion? How many of your
participants were not aware? This is an important point and would carry more
weight if it were specific. 
50. should be "to believe in screening"
19. should be: against to accepted norms
26-32
Women's financial dependence on men Unless this statement below is a direct
finding of your study, you need to cite references. 
"The frequency of PS varies in working women and housewives due to financial
independence
and dependence. Working women are more likely to perform PS because of
having higher level
of outcome, and accessing richer information and scientific resources. However,
housewives
are less likely to perform the above test due to their lower participation in the
society and, as a
result, their lack of awareness and financial dependence on their spouses."
37 should be: The high cost of the test reduces individuals' willingness to do it
17 attributed the unwillingness to perform PS to the promiscuity and sexual
immorality
33 "The fear of doing smear test can be reduced by informing and acquainting
people with
this test. " If the women are afraid to take the test because they are afraid of
finding out they have cervical cancer, how would informing about the test
decrease the fear? The test does show if a woman has cervical cancer. Perhaps
what the women need is education in the benefit of early detection.
Publons Reviewer Recognition
. Springer Nature can send verification of this
review directly to Publons (a subsidiary of Clarivate Analytics). If you would
like to take advantage of this service, please click on the “Yes” option below.
Your name, email address, title of the reviewed manuscript, name of the journal,
and date of your review submission (the “Review Data”) will then be transmitted
to Publons after the final decision on the manuscript has been made. If you have
already registered at Publons, they will notify you of the receipt of this review
and update your profile 
as per your settings and their policy. If you are not
registered with Publons, you will receive an email from them asking you to
register in order for them to be able to recognize your review on your new
profile page. Publons may use the Review Data to generate derivative metadata
for the benefit of Publons and you as a reviewer, carefully considering the
sensitivity of such information. For example, Publons may verify your record as
a reviewer by updating your profile published on its webservice if you have
registered for such service or help editors to identify candidate reviewers. Please
find the details of processing in Publons’ privacy policy
https://publons.com/about/terms
Yes
Declaration of competing interests
Please complete a declaration of competing
interests, considering the following questions:
1
. 
Have you in the past five years received reimbursements, fees, funding, or
salary from an organisation that may in any way gain or lose financially
from the publication of this manuscript, either now or in the future?
2
. 
Do you hold any stocks or shares in an organisation that may in any way
gain or lose financially from the publication of this manuscript, either now
or in the future?
3
. 
Do you hold or are you currently applying for any patents relating to the
content of the manuscript?
4
. 
Have you received reimbursements, fees, funding, or salary from an
organization that holds or has applied for patents relating to the content of
the manuscript?
5
. 
Do you have any other financial competing interests?
6
. 
Do you have any non-financial competing interests in relation to this
paper?
If you can answer no to all of the above, write 'I declare that I have no competing
interests' below. If your reply is yes to any, please give details below.
I declare I do not have competing interests
Reviewer Publication Consent.
 I agree for my report to be made available
under an Open Access Creative Commons CC-BY License (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
) if this manuscript is accepted for
publication. Any comments that I do not wish to be included in the published
report have been included as confidential comments to the editor, which will not
be published.
If you are not happy for us to publish this report, please contact the
editorial office before completing the review.
If you wish, you can include your
name in your published report. Please note you must decide whether to include
your name at the start of the process and confirm this decision whenever
prompted. If you change your decision later, we will not be able to publish your
name.
I agree to the terms of the CC-BY 4.0 license; please 
do not
 publish my name
with my report. (default)
Is the study design appropriate to answer the research question (including the use
of appropriate controls), and are the conclusions supported by the evidence
presented?
Yes
Are the methods sufficiently described to allow the study to be repeated?
No
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
Yes
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes