Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionSeptember 19, 2019 |
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PONE-D-19-24745 Bipolar disorder among married women in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi city PLOS ONE Dear Prof. Hossain, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Jan 17 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Nagendra P. Luitel, MA Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. We note that you have indicated that data from this study are available upon request. PLOS only allows data to be available upon request if there are legal or ethical restrictions on sharing data publicly. For information on unacceptable data access restrictions, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-unacceptable-data-access-restrictions. In your revised cover letter, please address the following prompts: a) If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially identifying or sensitive patient information) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. b) If there are no restrictions, please upload the minimal anonymized data set necessary to replicate your study findings as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. Please see http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c181.long for guidelines on how to de-identify and prepare clinical data for publication. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-recommended-repositories. We will update your Data Availability statement on your behalf to reflect the information you provide. 3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript: 'No fund was received from any individual or organization for this study.' We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: 'The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript' 4. Your ethics statement must appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please also ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics section of your online submission will not be published alongside your manuscript. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): 1) Please explain in detail how the randomization (in each step) was done. Who did the randomization i.e. the field workers or the senior researchers? 2) Please explain translation and adaptation process of the Bipolar Spectrum Diagnostic Scale (BSDS) in detail. Was any guideline or checklists used for translation and adaptation of the BSDS in local language? Who were involved in translation and adaptation process? 3) Please include more references in the methods section (under outcome measure sub-section) on the use of BSDS in community survey 4) Please provide some background information (i.e. if they are different than the study sample) of the 59 cases which were discarded from the analysis 5) Finally, as a significant number of participants are below the age of 18, it would be helpful for the readers if you could also provide information about minimum legal age of marriage in Bangladesh [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This article examines the prevalence of bipolar disorder in married Bangladeshi women in a particular geographical area. The manuscript suffers from several flaws that limit its scientific validity and applicability. 1. First, the authors have used a screening instrument that is, by definition, meant to pick up "spectrum disorders" rather than rigorously defined bipolar disorder. Hence, the "prevalence" estimate that they provide is of limited use. All "screen positive" cases should have been confirmed using standard diagnostic criteria. 2. Secondly, the authors have not confirmed if this instrument is valid in non-Western cultures. A perusal of the scale shows that it can easily be misunderstood and that some of the terms in it are hard to translate. 3. It is tautological (and more than a little foolish) to claim that "mental illness" increases the risk for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is, itself, a mental illness! If the authors mean "comorbid mental illness" (such as an anxiety disorder) then this must be mentioned using appropriate terms. Otherwise, it is a serious error which reflects badly on the credibility of the researchers. 4. Similarly, the authors have used simplistic, non-standard terminology ("rich" vs "poor" for income, "good" vs "poor" for quality of the marital relationship) that makes the data analyses difficult to interpret. 5. The writing style and grammar are poor, and the article would benefit from the assistance of a writer skilled in scientific writing in English. 6. Finally, there are serious ethical concerns about the inclusion of victims of child marriage (age 15) in a study of this sort. By including such subjects and accepting such a situation as normal, the researchers are tacitly endorsing the aberrant situation that exists in their country (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bangladesh-child-marriage-law-minimum-age-zero-reduce-baby-marital-unicef-un-a7619051.html) rather than advocating for the rights of vulnerable populations, as any ethical researcher would. For these reasons, it is my opinion that this article does not merit publication. Reviewer #2: Minor corrections: Abstract: 1. Better to use the term “mental disorder” rather than using “mental disease” Introduction: 2. In place of the term “victim” use “patient” Methodology 3. Authors have mentioned randomization was done at all three stages. It would be appreciated if they mention what method of randomization was used. A brief description of the process would help readers as well as future researchers. 4. What does “mental position” mean in line 122 5. Regarding the questionnaire, it is not clear whether the 66 items semi structured questionnaire had 20 items of BSDS or it was separately administered. Please clarify 6. For data collection you have mentioned “literate adults” were used as data collectors. I think they should have some level of education to collect data. 7. For female less than 18 years please mention if assent was taken. 8. Grammatical error “All the information of the answered questionnaires entered in computer and coded” Major comments: 9. In the methodology result and discussion section the authors have looks into different factors (mainly social) and have concluded the precipitating factors, vulnerability. However the factors may have just association rather than direct precipitation. The authors have completely missed the biological and psychological factors. If not studied these could be the domains for discussion. 10. Table 1: the factors like family members’ chronic illness have shown significant difference in BPD and normal groups. Similarly variable “sick treated immediately” makes no sense. This might be misleading as there is no any rational pathway for this. Hence I would recommend to take literature review in consideration before doing statistical tests and making an inference. 11. How were the reference factor selected ? (table 2) 12. My main concern is how were the study variables selected to make inferences? ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr. Pawan Sharma [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-19-24745R1 Bipolar disorder among married women in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi city PLOS ONE Dear Prof. Hossain, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. The authors have incorporated most of the comments in the revised manuscript; however, some of the writing is a bit imprecise, the manuscript be edited by a professional English language editor before publication. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Mar 09 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Nagendra P. Luitel, MA Academic Editor PLOS ONE While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 2 |
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Bipolar disorder among married women in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi city PONE-D-19-24745R2 Dear Dr. Hossain, We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication. Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. With kind regards, Nagendra P. Luitel, MA Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): No any further comment. The authors have addressed all the comments and feedback from the reviewers and academic editor. Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-19-24745R2 Bipolar disorder among married women in Bangladesh: Survey in Rajshahi city Dear Dr. Hossain: I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper at this point, to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. For any other questions or concerns, please email plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE. With kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Nagendra P. Luitel Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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