Title: The relationship between aggressive behaviors of preschool children and the violence
against Iranian women in the COVID-19 pandemic
Version: 1 Date: 26 Apr 2022
Reviewer:  Silvana Mula
Reviewer's report:
The authors explored the relationship between aggressive behaviors of preschool children and
violence against Iranian women during COVID-19, finding a positive association between
psychological, physical, and economic violence and preschoolers’ aggressiveness. Overall, this
work deals with an interesting and very important topic.
However, I have some reservations about the manuscript in its present form, which are detailed
below.
First, there are several typos within the text, and English also needs an overhaul. I would
recommend that authors take advantage of a proofreading service. The correlational analyzes
do not allow for a grasp of the causal relationships between the variables. Therefore, the
authors cannot affirm, simply from the analysis conducted, that A) domestic violence is caused
by the pandemic situation and B) that the aggressiveness of preschoolers is given by the
domestic violence suffered by their mothers. To affirm this, it would be necessary to have pre-
pandemic data on the domestic violence suffered by these women and the aggressive behaviors
of preschool children. Alternatively, a re-test would be required. Do the authors still have contact
with the women and children participating in this study? If so, they might consider reinforcing
their results with a re-test. These data and analyses give little information about the possible
relationship between preschool aggression and women violence during COVID-19.
Here, point by point, are my comments:
TITLE
- After two and a half years, we can safely define COVID-19 as a pandemic rather than an
epidemic.
ABSTRACT
- Since the analyses conducted are correlations, I would advise the authors to use "positive and
significant" rather than "direct and significant".
MATERIALS AND METHODS
- The hypotheses/research questions are missing;
- Regarding the recruited sample, I can only see the estimated sample size, but not the actual
one. How many women took part in the study?
- I agree that the pandemic situation caused by the COVID (e.g., the lockdown) has increased
the risk of domestic violence and that domestic violence is a risk factor for children. However,
despite the data collected during the pandemic, it is a bit difficult to say that violence against
women was caused by the lockdown. It would be useful for the authors to better describe the
questionnaires (e.g., giving some examples of items). It is one thing to ask if they suffer, for
example, psychological violence in general. It is another thing to ask if they have suffered (or
suffered more) psychological violence since the pandemic/lockdown began;
- The authors report the Cronbach’s alphas of their measuring instruments, reporting the relative
references (e.g., Haj-Yahia, 1999, Vahedi, 2008, etc.). Do these alphas refer to their study or
the studies reported in the references?
SAMPLE AND SETTING
- P’s value seems missing.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
- Be mindful of language in the results and discussion sections, e.g., terms like “increase” imply
causality, which cannot be presumed given the cross-sectional nature of the data. They could use
words like associated, linked, and correlated, which are more representative of the correlational
nature of the study design and analysis.
CONCLUSIONS
- The authors should broaden their conclusions. Specifically, what are the limits of the study?
What can be the practical implications? How can their results obtained be useful in practice?