PONE-D-20-32760

Experience of Gender-based Violence and its effect on the mental health status of Indian adolescent girls: Evidence from UDAYA survey

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chauhan,

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Kannan Navaneetham, PhD

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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: No

Reviewer #2: 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: This paper tackles an important subject the mental health consequences of exposure to violence in adolescent girls and women in India.

Abstract, Conclusion: This is not the first study worldwide to associate violence and mental health in adolescent girls. Please modify this statement. Is it the first study in India?

Page 3, line 4: ‘understanding of violence of include’ You don’t need the second ‘of’ here.

Page 4, line 2: I don’t understand this phrase ‘per lakh’.

Page 4, line 8: Can you clarify this ‘Given the diversity and disparity that exists’.

Page 4, line 4 up: This is not true. There are studies of violence and its mental health consequences in terms of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms and PTSD in the published literature.

Page 5, first paragraph: Can you please state your hypotheses here.

Page 5, line 15: How was the sample analysed in this study derived from the population of 20,000 participants in the original study? Was it a representative sample?

Page 5, line 16: What is a ‘Gauna’? Please add an explanation for those readers not familiar with Indian culture.

Page 6, Outcome variable: Was this measure of depressive symptoms a standard scale – if so, please reference it? If it was not a standard scale where was it derived from? How did you decide on the threshold for depressive symptoms?

Page 7, line 7: Did you measure whether they were a victim of bullying as well as carrying out bullying?

Page 8, Results: I wonder if it would be better if you began your results with more general findings, rather than the interactions i.e. Table 1. This would help to set the context for the interaction results. It is not clear why you stratify your results by whether it is justifiable for husbands to beat their wives?

Table 1: What does ‘OBC Other backward Class’ mean? A more detailed explanation would help readers not familiar with Indian Government Surveys.

Page 17, line 3: There are more studies of violence and mental health in adolescents than you report. It would be worth you doing further literature searches. This is not to undermine the importance of your findings.

Page 18, paragraph 2: Could the protective effect of education against violence in unmarried girls be a reflection of the protective effect of parental education levels?

In 'Limitations' you could also mention that as this is a cross sectional study there are limits to how much you can justify causal statements in the paper.

In general the English grammar in the paper could be improved before resubmission.

Reviewer #2: Dear Autors,

Your manuscript seems to be very interesting. You expose the problem with experiencing violence by young girls in India, which is rare. The manuscript requires many changes in the content or should be submitted to a different journal.

Abstract: it should specify in more detail the aim of the study. In my opinion, there is some discrepancy between the abstract and the main body of the manuscript in terms of aim of the study.

Some sentences cited information require bibliographic confirmation (eg, on p. 3, “Global studies show women all over the world face violence in various forms at hands of various people.”).

The authors do not specify the outcome variable. It first appears as an outcome variable, mental health, and then depressive symptoms. It is not clear what the depressive symptoms mean. It is not known what the definition of an outcome variable is and how this variable is described. The authors do not refer to the universal DSM 5 classification system or even any other.

Detailed information on how the statistics are calculated should not appear in the manuscript, as shown on p. 14.

The study aimed to test the impact of violence on the mental health of adolescents' victims. Unfortunately, the statistics do not allow to measure the value of impact or rather the prediction the odds of being a case based on the values of the independent variables (predictors).

According to Guidelines for reviewers, your manuscript should be revisted.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Stephen Stansfeld

Reviewer #2: No

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Experience of Gender-based Violence and its effect on depressive symptoms among Indian adolescent girls: Evidence from UDAYA survey

PONE-D-20-32760R1

Dear Dr. Chauhan,

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,

Kannan Navaneetham, PhD

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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 #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: As I mentioned in the first review, the research issue is very interesting and important. You made changes according to my comments. The theoretical background seems to be improved.

The most important concern of your manuscript is showing the phenomenon of violence taking into account the cultural context.

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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 #1: Yes: Stephen Stansfeld

Reviewer #2: Yes: Magdalena Rode