Does menstrual hygiene management and water, sanitation, and hygiene predict reproductive tract infections among reproductive women in urban areas in Ethiopia?

Ayechew Ademas; Metadel Adane; Tadesse Sisay; Helmut Kloos; Betelhiem Eneyew; Awoke Keleb; Mistir Lingerew; Atimen Derso; Kassahun Alemu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237696

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 22, 2020
23 Jul 2020 Decision Letter - Hans-Uwe Dahms, Editor PONE-D-20-19169 Menstrual Hygiene Management, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Remains a Public Health Problem for Women’s in Urbans of South Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Adane (PhD), 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 Sep 06 2020 11:59PM. 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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If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only. The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful: USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/ Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/ USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/# Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ Additional Editor Comments (if provided): There are some issues that need to be addressed for a REVISED VERSION: 1- In Table 1 in the age section, 20-year-olds were divided into two parts (15 to 20 and 20 to 34 years old). Why? 2- What is the meaning of No formal education in Table 1? Do you mean illiterate people or people who have been educated at home? 3- What is meant by Above secondary? Does it mean university education? Or people with a PhD degree? Please write a note. 4- In Table 2 for Distance of latrine from the house Written 15> and 15-30, Is 15 in the first category or the second? [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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 is valuable and can be published, but there are some issues that need to be addressed: 1- In Table 1 in the age section, 20-year-olds were divided into two parts (15 to 20 and 20 to 34 years old). Why? 2- What is the meaning of No formal education in Table 1? Do you mean illiterate people or people who have been educated at home? 3- What is meant by Above secondary? Does it mean university education? Or people with a PhD degree? Please write a note. 4- In Table 2 for Distance of latrine from the house Written 15> and 15-30, Is 15 in the first category or the second? Reviewer #2: This manuscript discusses a much needed work on Menstrual Hygiene Management, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Remains a Public Health Problem for Women’s in Urbans of South Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia with some basic results. The paper is suitable for publication with following corrections: 1. Add some of the most important quantitative results to the Abstract. 2. In Discussion and conclusion segment, authors can include the limitations of this study and more ideas and suggestions for prevention and control. The discussion section should be detailed with citation of all the recent references. Add more information about the significance and importance of this study. 3. A clear distinction of usage of the statistical tests has to be mentioned. 4. Authors should carefully review the final resolution of the figures prior to publication for better understanding of results. 5. Cite the source of future investigations in this study. 6. Rectify grammatical errors to reach up to international standards. 7. Ensure that the references and whole manuscript is as per journal format. Make certain that all the tables and figure citations are also in the standard format. 8.The authors are suggested to improve the quality of the language usage and correct grammatical errors. ****** 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237696.r001
Revision 1
28 Jul 2020 Author Response Response to reviewers 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Response: Thank you for this remark. We re-formatted the revised manuscript using the PLoS ONE format guidelines. The whole content of the manuscript, including the abstract, introduction, methods, discussion and reference are formatted using the guidelines (please see the revised version for each section). 2. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information. Response: We provided the questionnaire in English version and original language as supporting information S I and S II, respectively. 3. We note that [Figure(s) 1] in your submission contain [map/satellite] images which may be copyrighted. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For these reasons, we cannot publish previously copyrighted maps or satellite images created using proprietary data, such as Google software (Google Maps, Street View, and Earth). For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission: Response: The figure was removed in our submission. Reviewer #1 This article is valuable and can be published, but there are some issues that need to be addressed: Response: Thank you for the positive comments on our paper. Your concerns are addressed below. 1- In Table 1 in the age section, 20-year-olds were divided into two parts (15 to 20 and 20 to 34 years old). Why? Response: Thank you very much for finding out such errors. The correct grouping is 15 to 19 (See Table 1). 2- What is the meaning of No formal education in Table 1? Do you mean illiterate people or people who have been educated at home? Response: Sorry for the confusion. We mean they are illiterate. Illiterate not attended both formal and informal education (See Table 1). 3- What is meant by above secondary? Does it mean university education? Or people with a PhD degree? Please write a note Response: Primary education means Grade 1-8; secondary education Grade 9-12, and above secondary education means that diploma, degree, masters and others. 4- In Table 2 for Distance of latrine from the house Written 15> and 15-30, Is 15 in the first category or the second? Response: 15 is the second category since for the first category we used less than 15. Reviewer #2 Reviewer #2: This manuscript discusses a much needed work on Menstrual Hygiene Management, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Remains a Public Health Problem for Women’s in Urbans of South Wollo, Amhara Region, Ethiopia with some basic results. The paper is suitable for publication with following corrections: Response: Thank you very much for the positive reflection of our paper. Corrections were made as follows. 1. Add some of the most important quantitative results to the Abstract. Response: We added some of the main quantitative results to the Abstract (See the result section of the abstract in lines 37 to 44. 2. In discussion and conclusion segment, authors can include the limitations of this study and more ideas and suggestions for prevention and control. The discussion section should be detailed with citation of all the recent references. Add more information about the significance and importance of this study. Response: Thank you for this pertinent comments. The discussion and conclusion section were revised (see the revised version in lines 363 to 367; 473-375; 379-382; 387-393; 397-399 and 416-419. See also about the conclusion in lines 462 to 464. The significance of the study in practice/policy implications were further explained (See lines 441 to 449. 3. A clear distinction of usage of the statistical tests has to be mentioned. Response: The statistical testes are put in a clear way. See the revised lines Table 6. 4. Authors should carefully review the final resolution of the figures prior to publication for better understanding of results. Response: Figures 1 to 3 were deleted since they are not important. But Figure 4 during the revision became figure 1 and was updated for clarity (See figure 1). 5. Cite the source of future investigations in this study. Response: The recommendations for future investigations are the author’s idea and therefore need no source. 6. Rectify grammatical errors to reach up to international standards. Response: We edited the grammatical errors (see the revised version). 7. Ensure that the references and whole manuscript is as per journal format. Make certain that all the tables and figure citations are also in the standard format. Response: We formatted them as per the journal guidelines. 8.The authors are suggested to improve the quality of the language usage and correct grammatical errors. Response: We edited language usage and grammatical errors. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237696.r002
3 Aug 2020 Decision Letter - Hans-Uwe Dahms, Editor Does menstrual hygiene management and water, sanitation, and hygiene predictors for reproductive tract infections among reproductive age Women in urban Areas of Ethiopia? PONE-D-20-19169R1 Dear Dr. Adane (PhD), 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, Hans-Uwe Dahms, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): This MS has now be revised to an extend that it becomes acceptable. Reviewers' comments: Accept https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237696.r003
Formally Accepted
5 Aug 2020 Acceptance Letter - Hans-Uwe Dahms, Editor PONE-D-20-19169R1 Does menstrual hygiene management and water, sanitation, and hygiene predictors for reproductive tract infections among reproductive age Women in urban Areas of Ethiopia? Dear Dr. Adane (PhD): 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 Dr. Hans-Uwe Dahms Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237696.r004

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