Reviewer's report 
 Asymptomatic Bacteriuria in type 2 Iranian diabetic women : a cross sectional study Title: 
 4  7 October 2005 Version: Date: 
 Adriana Perez Reviewer: 
Reviewer's report: 
This manuscript presents the results of investigating four aims: (i) the prevalence and, (ii) the 
associated risk factors in diabetic patients for asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) in Iranian diabetic 
women, as well as (iii) assessing the organism responsible for urinary tract infections and (iv) the 
antimicrobial sensitivity patterns of such organism. The authors provide a good description and the 
need for this research. 
Methods: 
-Authors do not inform the readers which questions are present on the questionnaire 
mentioned as well as there are not information on the quality measurements of those questions (validity, reproducibility, etc). 
-Authors do not describe the details for computing the sample size or power calculations for 
estimating the risk factors mentioned as the aims of the study. They presented the formula for 
estimating the prevalence only. Authors seemed the other three outcomes could be secondary aims 
but it is unclear if sample size estimation was based also to detect those aims as well. 
-Authors estimated the sample size without adjusting for population size therefore this need to be 
acknowledged and account its bias in the interpretation and discussion. 
-Authors lack to inform readers about what each component of the formula means. What 
is P? What is Q, and so on. What was the primary outcome for the formula? The values 
reported for sample size calculation provided a result of 385 patients instead of 200 as mentioned by 
the authors. Therefore it is unclear what parameters or formula did the authors used to get the 200 
number. If the author’s primary outcome was the difference on ASB, then their formula should reflect 
this and what is currently presented does not reflect this. Therefore this is also unclear. 
-It is unclear how the authors “search” for the associated factors. Readers need to 
understand which plan was setup for the testing of those associations and if univariate or 
multivariate components with and without interactions were planned, among other things. Results: 
-The results of the main aims of this study are not clearly stated for the readers in this section. For 
example, if the main outcome was to report the prevalence of ASB, what was the outcome final result? Which one of the variables in Table 1 is their outcome result? The results are presented at the beginning of the discussion if ASB=bacteriuria. It is unclear why the inconsistency on the terms 
used by authors. 
-Authors do not specify what is the value reported after each one of them means described. For example, 56+6.1. Is 6.1 the standard deviation or the standard error reported? 
-Because the methods are unclear about the models for association, it was impossible to evaluate 
the certainty about the statement on the discussion about the risk factor with p value of 0.09 and its corresponding likelihood ratio of 0.05. These are results and those models are not presented. -Many results are presented in the discussion instead that on the results section. 
Discussion: 
Authors are encouraged to revisit their discussion comparing their findings with others either in their 
country and with international. The lack of future research needs, biases, limitations/ strengths of 
this research, etc, in this section diminished the enthusiasm of this manuscript. 
Tables: 
Please indicate which summary measures of central tendency and variability are 
presented on tables. 
Table 1 should contain the participant’s characteristics between those with ASB and 
those without it, since the authors indicated that they want to establish associated risk factors. Current table 1 does not allow evaluating this. Table 3: The authors lacked to describe what were the methods plans to decide what to 
test or what do not to test for many of the antibiotics in there. Was the testing done systematically? 
Is this just the results of the samples without a protocol for testing all? What were the criteria for some to be tested? What * means on that table? Minor comments: 
-Abstract, conclusion: Please use “and” instead of “&”.