Reviewer’s report
Title: 
EVALUATING INTERVENTIONS WITH VICTIMS OF INTIMATE
PARTNER VIOLENCE: A COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY APPROACH
Version: 
1 
Date: 
15 Jan 2021
Reviewer's report:
Thank you to the authors for submitting this manuscript to BMC Women's
Health. You have focused on a very important women's health topic with
important potential for identification of best practices in supporting female IPV
survivors. Below are my thoughts on important areas for consideration in
enhancing the quality of the manuscript for publication.
Background
2nd paragraph is convoluted making the meaning to be lost in the references.
The first sentence can be clearly written to indicate that the effect of IPV can be
dramatic on both women and children. Then you can tease out the impact on
women and then children in separate sentences. 
Also, within the same paragraph there are errors in the presentation of your
references.
3rd paragraph last sentence says "….evidences are not strong enough to produce
recommendations, and research is still needed to fill this gap". What are the
specific recommendations that you are referring to? You are yet to argue the
presence of any gap and this is required before you can suggest the need to fill
the gap.
The last phrase in your write-up about the difference between resilience and
empowerment should be "it is the empowerment process that is taking place"
rather than "it is the empowerment process to take place" 
In the paragraph before the subheading "The present study", you said these
recommendations…" The question then is "which recommendations? For this
assertion to be made, you should have guided the reader by mentioning
something about recommendation in the paragraph or sentence before that.
Kindly check and amend to enhance clarity. 
Within this same paragraph- 2nd to
the last sentence, "The authors also suggest to…" should be "The authors also
suggest the need to….".
In the abstract, you stated that you used "Empowerment Process Model by
Cattaneo and Goodman (2015) to analyse interventions provided to victims of
IPV by a Support Centre for Women in Italy…". However, the first sentence
under "The present study" you said "we used the Brodsky and Cattaneo (2013)
model to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the program for IPV victims of
a Support Centre for Women located in the Center-North of Italy". Please check
the whole manuscript for consistency.
Please take all the content about "Participants description" to the result section.
Method:
Considering that the program that is being evaluated is a joint program between
Support Centre for Women and a University, is the membership of the research
team drawn from both the University and Centre or University alone? Please
include this in the data collection. 
Did you maintain field notes, any content about body language? These are
important details that are required in qualitative studies. 
How was reflexivity and rigour ensured in this study?
Result
Thank you very much for the detail presentation of your result section. Apart
from editing issue, I quite enjoyed reading this section.
Discussion
It is expected that the discussion section will be written with salient findings
expatiated in the light of available literature. However, currently, it appears that
the result section is re-presented. 
This section need to be re-written drawing inferences on how your findings are
similar to available literature, how they are dissimilar and possible explanations
for either observation 
Overall,
The paper will benefit from editing for correction of grammatical errors. The
quality of the 
manuscript will be enhanced by the service of professional editor with expertise
in English language.
There are instances of you referring to the Centre as "Support Centre for
Women" and other instances as "Support Centre for Woman". Please check the
entire document and ensure consistency.
Under Method-participant and procedure, you used 'candidate participants'.
Choose just one of them.
Thank you.
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Declaration of competing interests
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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?
Yes
Is the use of statistics and treatment of uncertainties appropriate?
Yes
Is the presentation of the work clear?
No
Are the images in this manuscript (including electrophoretic gels and blots) free
from apparent manipulation?
Yes