Reviewer's report
Title:Factors Associated with Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in
Rwanda: A cross-sectional study
Version:2Date:25 April 2015
Reviewer: Mara J Goldman
Reviewer's report:
Overall this is a very interesting and important article. There are some changes
that need to be made to strengthen it for publication
Please number your comments and divide them into
- Major Compulsory Revisions
The author must respond to these before a decision on publication can be
reached. For example, additional necessary experiments or controls, statistical
mistakes, errors in interpretation.
1. The authors “assume that the factors associated with IPV have not changed
substantially between 2005 and 2010” (line 135). While necessary due to
limitations in the 2012 data, this assumption undermines the authors’ premise
regarding the role of political change in Rwanda. More explanation is required in
order to overcome this assumption.
2. The authors ordered 15 covariates based on “a priori knowledge;” (line 176)
however they do not state how this knowledge was gained or the type of
knowledge. For example, was this knowledge about relationship dynamics
gained through previous fieldwork? Therefore, the factors that determined the
most important covariant vs. the least important covariant remain unclear.
3. The authors’ review of the literature and theoretical framing is rather limited
given the scope of work surrounding IPV.
4. Citations for “power theory” (line 111) should also include Straus. Additionally,
Bell and Naugle’s (2008) paper in Clinical Psychology Review may prove helpful
to the authors regarding the genealogy of theories surrounding IPV. Rowlands, J.
(1995). Empowerment examined may also be helpful.
5. It would be useful if the authors drew upon the development and
empowerment literature as well to highlight other cases where ‘empowerment’ of
women as related to economic, land ownership, and political participation,
sometimes leads to increased violence. In the discussion section there is a
discussion of the need to improve the law and legal education and facilitates to
reduce IPV. However, it seems that laws already exist, as do exemplary
establishments for reporting and receiving help. I think that the paper needs to
explore, at least in discussion, why it might be that Rwanda has the highest rate
of political participation of women globally, great laws and facilities for dealing
with IPV, and yet some of the highest rates of IPV in the world, against women.
While the data alone cannot speak to this question, the discussion should
address the fact that this could be seen as an early result of empowerment and
that NGO and political interventions, should address this trend. If it is related to
women’s empowerment will it stay? Go back down? How will the law alone deal
with that?
6. It is notoriously difficult to collect reliable data on IPV. Within the discussion of
the methods or limitations the authors need to address the difficulty of collecting
reliable data on IPV and how the authors’ overcame this limitation.
7. Additionally, within the methods section the authors need to address who
collected the data as this could affect the reliability of the data (particularly the
training and gender of the enumerators).
8. The authors state in their results that women who beat their husbands ”had 9
times the odds of sexual IPV;” however in the previous paragraph the authors
state that only 9 participants reported this factor, which may affect the
generalizability of the results.
9. The conclusions are disconnected from the project’s results. While the future
proposed research is fascinating, the authors do not clearly state how the current
research will facilitate this work, or the connection between the current work and
the future research.
10. The abstract, discussion and conclusions section require extensive revision.
- Minor Essential Revisions
11. I found numerous minor errors in the manuscript (a few are listed below).
12. Line 38 (Abstract results): “beating partner unproved” – Unprovoked
13. Line 33 (Abstract methods): “(2010 RDHS missing key variables)” - This is
confusing. It should be clarified and made into a complete sentence.
14. Line 50 (Abstract conclusions) – “physosocial services” – Spelling error
15. Line 291: “hospitals..” – Two periods
16. Line 320: “researcher” – researchers
17. The Y-axis labels of figure 1 are cut off. Please check with the editors.
- Discretionary Revisions
These are recommendations for improvement, which the author can choose to
ignore. For example clarifications, data that would be useful but not essential.
18. The title is accurate, if not a bit bland.
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: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests