PONE-D-19-29504

Knowledge and attitudes regarding diabetic retinopathy among diabetic patients registered in a chronic disease management system in eastern China

PLOS ONE

Dear Mr. Chen,

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Wen-Jun Tu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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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: Dear authors,

I would like to congratulate the authors for their efforts in studying a topic that is so relevant. I would like to bring to their attention the following:

1. Sampling: The authors have mentioned that participants were randomly sampled. This has the potential to introduce bias, hence It would be beneficial to the readers if this was explained further.

2. Validation: Was the questionnaire validated? The questionnaire could be attached as a supplementary file.

3. Table 4: It is not clear what the authors are trying to depict in this table. The column “All” probably needs to be deleted.

4. One of the components of the knowledge score is “DM can cause blindness”. This should not be compared with “concern about vision loss” as both mean the same.

5. The same comment goes for “regular eye exams are necessary” which is a component of knowledge score, should not be compared with “told regular examinations should be done”

6. Strength of association: Although the authors comment on the significant association between knowledge score and various factors, there is however no comment on the strength of association. There appears to be only a week association between most of the factors except college education.

“concern about vision loss” and “told regular examinations should be done” also have a higher strength of association for obvious reasons as they are part of the knowledge score. These should not be compared.

Reviewer #2: Dear colleague. I enjoyed reading the manuscript. I have a few suggestions enclosed with the PDF as comments. I have a concern regarding use of the term "Knowledge and attitudes", when really, after reading the paper, i get a sense that knowledge, practices, risk factors for poor knowledge and lack of screening, and sources of information have been inquired. Also, I suggest adding an explanation about how variables were selected for the multiple linear regression.

Reviewer #3: The authors have used a questionnaire based approach to gather the information. They sought to find out the knowledge and attitudes of diabetic patients to the aspects of diabetic retinopathy. The authors have not scientifically adequately addressed the research question of attitudes. The study has not accounted for some confounding variables such as source of the information and access to information if formal or informal and if any person known to the patient or the person himself/herself already had retinopathy. The study does not add any scientifically sound useful information.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dr. Vivek Gupta

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-19-29504_reviewer VG.pdf

Knowledge and practices regarding diabetic retinopathy among diabetic patients registered in a chronic disease management system in eastern China

PONE-D-19-29504R1

Dear Dr. Chen,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Wen-Jun Tu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. 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 #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. 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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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6. 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 #2: Thank You for addressing the concerns with the initial submission, that were raised in the first review.

Reviewer #3: The manuscript is better now. The authors have revised the paper keeping in view the reviewer comments.

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7. 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 #2: Yes: Dr Vivek Gupta

Reviewer #3: No