Title: A lack of sexual autonomy is associated with increased loneliness in young mothers
Version: 1 Date: 12 Sep 2024
Reviewer's report:
PEER REVIEWER ASSESSMENTS:
OBJECTIVE - Full research articles: is there a clear objective that addresses a testable research
question(s) (brief or other article types: is there a clear objective)?
Yes - there is a clear objective
DESIGN - Is the current approach (including controls and analysis protocols) appropriate for
the objective?
No - there are minor issues
EXECUTION - Are the experiments and analyses performed with technical rigor to allow
confidence in the results?
No - there are minor issues
STATISTICS - Is the use of statistics in the manuscript appropriate?
Yes - appropriate statistical analyses have been used in the study
INTERPRETATION - Is the current interpretation/discussion of the results reasonable and not
overstated?
Yes - the author's interpretation is reasonable
OVERALL MANUSCRIPT POTENTIAL - Is the current version of this work technically
sound? If not, can revisions be made to make the work technically sound?
Maybe - with major revisions
PEER REVIEWER COMMENTS:
GENERAL COMMENTS: My overall impression of the manuscript, “A lack of sexual
autonomy is associated with increased loneliness in young mothers,” is mixed. The authors have
done several things well.
First, the introduction is concisely and compellingly written, with clear and organized research
support providing a rationale and background for the current investigation. The two hypotheses
are clearly stated and match the analyses completed.
Second, the methods are clear and complete. The authors provide sufficient information about
the measures being used and the rationale for each decision.
The major issue I have with the methodology and findings is the authors’ decision to evaluate
the gendered and sexual autonomy questions, but then to recognize that the sexual autonomy
questions are only answered by a subset of women in both groups who are partnered. This leads
to unclear results, where most of the analyses are conducted with larger n involving partnered
and unpartnered women, but the sexual autonomy variable (the one lone significant variable)
is evaluated with only about 2/3 of the sample because others are dropped out due to not being
partnered. If the main variable for the hypothesis makes sense only to measure in partnered
women, why not only analyze partnered women for the whole study and narrow the intended
population and question in that way? It would be preferable, in my opinion, to do this than to
really analyze two separate samples of partnered vs all women and try to synthesize the results
as if they were one.
The results would benefit from some revision of table formatting to streamline the table column
categories for clearer readability. I defer to any formatting requirements of the specific journal,
but as a reader, I felt there were too many separate tables while also having too cluttered tables
for clear readability.
I appreciate the authors’ list of limitations and I believe interpretations are reasonable in the
discussion section.
REQUESTED REVISIONS:
My suggestions for revision are in two areas: first, decide whether to analyze all variables
exclusively for partnered women (with and without child), or whether to do the analyses with all
in both groups but break out partnered women in both groups for repeating the same analyses, so
that when comparing sexual autonomy as a predictor, you can know that you are using the same
sample and not a subsample of those who were compared for the original hypothesis. Within
this, I would revise the second hypothesis to clarify that it is only being asked within partnered
women.
Second, revise tables for clarity and conciseness, especially caring to address readability and
clutter in headings.