Malaria preventive practices and delivery outcomes: A cross-sectional study of parturient women in a tertiary hospital in Eastern Uganda

Rebecca Nekaka; Julius Nteziyaremye; Paul Oboth; Jacob Stanley Iramiot; Julius Wandabwa

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237407

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMay 8, 2020
8 May 2020 Author Response Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to the reviewer 02.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r001
18 Jun 2020 Decision Letter - Kwasi Torpey, Editor PONE-D-20-13366 Malaria Preventive Practices and Delivery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Study of Parturient Women in a Tertiary Hospital in Eastern Uganda. PLOS ONE Dear Mr Iramiot 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. Please submit your revised manuscript by 15th August 2020. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're 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. 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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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 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: Major Comment 1. Almost all references in background part are wrong. The references mentioned are not providing the stated concept. Some are directly copied from the background of other studies, with no change in reference. Dear authors, please make sure that you are using a reference because of the finding/conclusion of that work, not because of the background they used. Minor comments 1. The background in abstract is not sufficient, it says nothing about the case in pregnant women, except what is mentioned as objective 2. If possible, avoid abbreviations in abstract or use in the expanded form in their first appearances eg. ANC 3. It is better to use country or city as keyword for easy searchability of the work. Eg. Uganda 4. Exclusion: it doesn’t give sense to exclude deliveries on weekends and public holidays in a research(specially funded one). Rationalize as this exclusion may rise the idea of bias. What was your reason? 5. Grammar and spelling errors: it needs language editing. Examples: His could be….. instead of This could be….. 5th line of discussion Higher that others…… instead of Higher than others….last line of conclusion 6. Conclusion: in the statement saying the effective use of malaria preventive strategies (IPT-SP and ITN) is generally still low, please do not use generally and still together. Use either of them. I recommend is generally low. Reviewer #2: The study is interesting and noteworthy, and contributes to the needed body of evidence about access to and impact of malaria in pregnancy interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. That said, the rigor of the IPTp coverage data is ambiguous. They refer to women who did vs did not receive X doses of IPTp with SP, while simultaneously noting that over 85% received SP by prescription, not by DOT. The researchers do not meaningfully address the rigor of self-reported IPTp administration. The data is analyzed comparing women receiving vs not receiving IPTp, however there should be some acknowledgement that there may be differences between women who received IPTp by DOT, and that there may be differences in outcome between women who received IPT via DOT vs not (noting that if IPTp is not administered via DOT, it cannot be confirmed as taken). I recognize that it would be difficult to disaggregate the IPTp data for analysis by DOT vs non-DOT, as the DOT group is likely too small to produce significant results, however the data as presented may mislead readers about the relationship between IPTp and anemia, parasitemia and birth outcome. There are several other minor revisions that should be made, such as updating the WHO recommended number of ANC visits to be in line with current guidelines. I propose that the recommendation “Sensitizing women about IPT during health talks will encourage women to demand for DOT mode of IPT.” should be revised to focus on changing provider behavior. Providers are responsible for the care they offer and it is not reasonable to assume that pregnant women are empowered enough and have adequate agency to demand this service. Additionally, the differences in detection rates of parasitemia with smears vs RDT should be considered for a potentially recommendation. The paragraph beginning “Of the 19 mothers with positive malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (MRDT) at delivery” could be revised for clarity between the groups. Several other places could benefit from revisions for clarity including “The women who took 2 or more doses had a higher likelihood of being compared to those who had less than two doses” and “Studies done by The difference in the prevalence between microscopy and RDT…” ****** 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: No [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.] 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-13366.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r002
Revision 1
15 Jul 2020 Author Response Response to reviewers SN Comment Response Reviewer 1 Major comments 1 Almost all references in background part are wrong. The references mentioned are not providing the stated concept. Some are directly copied from the background of other studies, with no change in reference. Dear authors, please make sure that you are using a reference because of the finding/conclusion of that work, not because of the background they used All references have been reviewed and well aligned as recommended by the reviewer. Thank you Minor comments 1 The background in abstract is not sufficient, it says nothing about the case in pregnant women, except what is mentioned as objective Corrections have been made as recommended by the reviewer. 2 If possible, avoid abbreviations in abstract or use in the expanded form in their first appearances eg. ANC Amended as recommended by the reviewer 3 It is better to use country or city as keyword for easy searchability of the work. Eg. Uganda Thank you for the guidance. This has been amended. 4 Exclusion: it doesn’t give sense to exclude deliveries on weekends and public holidays in a research (specially funded one). Rationalize as this exclusion may rise the idea of bias. What was your reason? This has been corrected. The recruitment was actually done throughout the week. 5 Grammar and spelling errors: it needs language editing. Examples: His could be….. instead of This could be….. 5th line of discussion Higher that others…… instead of Higher than others….last line of conclusion Critical language editing has been done throughout the manuscript. Thank you. 6 Conclusion: in the statement saying the effective use of malaria preventive strategies (IPT-SP and ITN) is generally still low, please do not use generally and still together. Use either of them. I recommend is generally low. This has been corrected as recommended by the reviewer. Reviewer 2 1 The study is interesting and noteworthy, and contributes to the needed body of evidence about access to and impact of malaria in pregnancy interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. That said, the rigor of the IPTp coverage data is ambiguous. They refer to women who did vs did not receive X doses of IPTp with SP, while simultaneously noting that over 85% received SP by prescription, not by DOT. The researchers do not meaningfully address the rigor of self-reported IPTp administration. Thank you. Amendments have been made for clarity. Self-reported IPTp administration has been acknowledged as a limitation to the study. 2 The data is analyzed comparing women receiving vs not receiving IPTp, however there should be some acknowledgement that there may be differences between women who received IPTp by DOT, and that there may be differences in outcome between women who received IPT via DOT vs not (noting that if IPTp is not administered via DOT, it cannot be confirmed as taken). I recognize that it would be difficult to disaggregate the IPTp data for analysis by DOT vs non-DOT, as the DOT group is likely too small to produce significant results, however the data as presented may mislead readers about the relationship between IPTp and anemia, parasitemia and birth outcome. The authors have acknowledged this as a limitation to the study 3 There are several other minor revisions that should be made, such as updating the WHO recommended number of ANC visits to be in line with current guidelines. I propose that the recommendation “Sensitizing women about IPT during health talks will encourage women to demand for DOT mode of IPT.” should be revised to focus on changing provider behavior. Providers are responsible for the care they offer and it is not reasonable to assume that pregnant women are empowered enough and have adequate agency to demand this service. Amendments have been made as recommended by the reviewer. 4 Additionally, the differences in detection rates of parasitemia with smears vs RDT should be considered for a potentially recommendation. This has been improved in the discussion section and also a has been drawn from our findings and from previous studies. 5 The paragraph beginning “Of the 19 mothers with positive malaria Rapid Diagnostic Test (MRDT) at delivery” could be revised for clarity between the groups. This has been revised as advised by the reviewer. 6 Several other places could benefit from revisions for clarity including “The women who took 2 or more doses had a higher likelihood of being compared to those who had less than two doses” and “Studies done by The difference in the prevalence between microscopy and RDT…” The authors have recommended a longitudinal study to related IPTp uptake to the delivery outcome Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r003
20 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Kwasi Torpey, Editor PONE-D-20-13366R1 Malaria Preventive Practices and Delivery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Study of Parturient Women in a Tertiary Hospital in Eastern Uganda. PLOS ONE Dear Mr Iramiot, 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 manuscript needs significant copyediting and language corrections before it can be published. There are several examples of grammatical errors and inappropriate capitalization in the manuscript. Using the abstract as an example the following errors are noted 1. long term effects consequences 2. Inappropriate capitalization of antenatal in the middle of a sentence 3. We aimed to determine the use...….. This is could be simply We determined 4. Typo Isectides There are several more errors in the manuscript and I strongly recommend a native speaker copyedits and c Please submit your revised manuscript by 30th July 2020. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Professor Kwasi Torpey, MD PhD MPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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.] 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r004
Revision 2
23 Jul 2020 Author Response Response to Reviewers SN Comment Response 1 Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Amendments have been made as advised by the reviewer Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r005
27 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Kwasi Torpey, Editor Malaria Preventive Practices and Delivery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Study of Parturient Women in a Tertiary Hospital in Eastern Uganda. PONE-D-20-13366R2 Dear Mr Iramiot, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- 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. Kind regards, Professor Kwasi Torpey, MD PhD MPH Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r006
Formally Accepted
29 Jul 2020 Acceptance Letter - Kwasi Torpey, Editor PONE-D-20-13366R2 Malaria Preventive Practices and Delivery Outcomes: A Cross-sectional Study of Parturient Women in a Tertiary Hospital in Eastern Uganda. Dear Dr. Iramiot: I'm 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 let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Professor Kwasi Torpey Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237407.r007

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