Unmet need for family planning and associated factors among currently married women of reproductive age in Bishoftu town, Eastern Ethiopia

Megersa Girma Garo; Sileshi Garoma Abe; Worku Dugasa Girsha; Dawit Wolde Daka

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260972

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 16, 2021
16 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Srinivas Goli, Editor PONE-D-21-23218Unmet need for family planning and associated factors among currently married women of reproductive age in Bishoftu town, Eastern Ethiopia.PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Daka, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: Considering the reviewers suggestion and my own reading, I am suggesting a minor revision to this paper. Can you develop the discussion a little more so that it will be relevant to global readers. Compare your results with other developing countries. For instance, use following references to make a comparative discussion. Rana MJ, Goli S, Mishra R, Gautam A, Datta N, Nanda P, Verma R. Contraceptive Method Information and Method Switching in India. Sustainability. 2021; 13(17):9831. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9831 Misra S, Goli S, Rana MJ, Gautam A, Datta N, Nanda P, Verma R. Family Welfare Expenditure, Contraceptive Use, Sources and Method-Mix in India. Sustainability. 2021; 13(17):9562. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179562 Rana, M. J., & Goli, S. (2021). The road from ICPD to SDGs: health returns of reducing the unmet need for family planning in India. Midwifery, 103107. The road from ICPD to SDGs: Health returns of reducing the unmet need for family planning in India - ScienceDirect Goli, S., Moradhvaj, James, K.S., Singh, D. & Srinivasan, V. (2020). Road to family planning and RMNCHN related SDGs: Tracing the role of public health spending in India, Global Public Health, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2020.1809692. Goli S., Gautam A, Rana MJ, Ram H, Ganguly D, Reja T, Nanda P, Datta N, Verma R. (2020). Is unintended birth associated with physical intimate partner violence? Evidence from India. Journal of biosocial science.1-16. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 31 2021 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. 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'. 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Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Srinivas Goli, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Considering the reviewers suggestion and my own reading, I am suggesting a minor revision to this paper. Can you develop the discussion a little more so that it will be relevant to global readers. Compare your results with other developing countries. For instance, use following references to make a comparative discussion. Rana MJ, Goli S, Mishra R, Gautam A, Datta N, Nanda P, Verma R. Contraceptive Method Information and Method Switching in India. Sustainability. 2021; 13(17):9831. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9831 Misra S, Goli S, Rana MJ, Gautam A, Datta N, Nanda P, Verma R. Family Welfare Expenditure, Contraceptive Use, Sources and Method-Mix in India. Sustainability. 2021; 13(17):9562. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179562 Rana, M. J., & Goli, S. (2021). The road from ICPD to SDGs: health returns of reducing the unmet need for family planning in India. Midwifery, 103107. The road from ICPD to SDGs: Health returns of reducing the unmet need for family planning in India - ScienceDirect Goli, S., Moradhvaj, James, K.S., Singh, D. & Srinivasan, V. (2020). Road to family planning and RMNCHN related SDGs: Tracing the role of public health spending in India, Global Public Health, DOI: 10.1080/17441692.2020.1809692. Goli S., Gautam A, Rana MJ, Ram H, Ganguly D, Reja T, Nanda P, Datta N, Verma R. (2020). Is unintended birth associated with physical intimate partner violence? Evidence from India. Journal of biosocial science.1-16. 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 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 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. 3. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. 4. 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Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [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: No ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 3. 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Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 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: The title of the paper should modified first. Give some more information on study design and participant selection. Literally the selection process sounds good, but authors must put some statistical formula for sample size estimation. Firstly the things mentioned in data processing and analysis were not truely done. Except table four rest tables were depicting only number and percentages. Bivariate logistic regression and multivariate logistic regression analysis tables were not present in the manuscript seperately. Dicussion should be more concentrated on the regression tables, as from table four it is clear that last category of each variable is reference category, so author must discuss his/her results based on the reference category, whether in respect of the reference catgory other catgories are increasing or decreasing. Reviewer #2: n the abstract, authors should consider a comma before including. Contrary to the statement that little is known about determinants of unmet need for family planning in the study area, much research study has been done. Discard the repetition of Ethiopia. Change primary outcome to response variable or outcome variable. The adjusted odds ratio should be in decimal (AOR=3), it should be 3.0. Authors should check power of the test, looking at the confidence interval, p-value and effect size. Introduction session: Grammatical blunders frequent often. In the conceptualisation of unmet need, the statement "women either who wishes.... The key problems associated with the issue of unmet need for family planning were not discussed. Apart from that, the argument that much research has not been done is not convincing and evidence-based. Many research have been done on determinants of unmet need for family planning in this context. As such, authors need to argue clearly and make the problem statement and research gap convincing. Also, the authors should provide a clear context for the research. There should be clear justification for researching married women in the urban context. Unmet need for family planning varies significantly..... (references) missing. The authors have a weak academic writing style and sloppy statement. The authors wrote there were studies without reference in Ethiopian context? Thus, why this study? The authors should state the current state of evidence in the study area and argue clearly on what is not known. Check grammar eligible for or to?Line 115, each participant household was visited. Recorded as no response should be correct. Consider: socio-demographic and socio-economic? Method session The justification for the study area was not clearly stated. Data were checked for completeness The data analysis was progressed in such a way that primarily descriptive statistics to describe and ....check the sentence is clumsy and sloppy. There is an un-academic statement: candidate variable. What informed the choice of p<0.25 consideration for multivariate analysis. Why logistic regression? Is it binary, ordinal or multinomial? Results The descriptive statistics and interpretation should be reduced. Authors should check the presentation of results at the three levels of analysis. The results should follow the objectives of the study. Discussion: This section was poorly written. The introductory paragraph should focus on the overall aim of the study and what was found. Each of the objectives should be considered in each paragraph. The authors should present results, comparison with previous studies, plausible explanation for divergence and convergence of results. The authors should consider date of publication, study population, settings, sample size in providing possibles reasons for deviation of results. There are many counter-intuitive results. Thus, there is a need to explore the reasons for the deviation. Authors should consider the statement: the odds of having unmet need for family planning was more likely among women who desire to have fewer children. Does not should be written in full in formal writing, such as this. The study has no policy implications, discussion on social reality of effect size and other confounders. Conclusion There was no clear philosophic stance in the conclusion. Many blanket statements were made in a sweeping manner. APA format of referencing should be followed. ****** 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: Yes: Tushar Dakua Reviewer #2: Yes:** Olufemi M. Adetutu, PhD [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.0260972.r001
Revision 1
31 Oct 2021 Author Response 31th October, 2021 To Editor PLOS ONE Subject: Submitting revised manuscript It is our great pleasure for the opportunity given to us to submit the revised version of the manuscript and we acknowledge the fruitful comments provided by the reviewers. Our point-by-point responses to each of the reviewers’ comments are presented as follows. Reviewer 1: 1. The title of the paper should have modified first. Give some more information on study design and participant selection. Literally the selection process sounds good, but authors must put some statistical formula for sample size estimation. Response: Thank you very much. We appreciate the comment given by reviewer to modify the title. We haven’t modified the title of the paper because we thought that the current title is appropriate for the contents of the paper. We have included sample size calculation formula and provide information about study design and participant selection. 2. Firstly the things mentioned in data processing and analysis were not truly done. Except table four rest tables were depicting only number and percentages. Bivariate logistic regression and multivariate logistic regression analysis tables were not present in the manuscript separately. Response: Thank you very much. We have included 95% CI for percent for table 2 and 3. We have presented both the bivariate and multivariate regression tables because the number of tables might increase beyond the journals limit. 3. Discussion should be more concentrated on the regression tables, as from table four it is clear that last category of each variable is reference category, so author must discuss his/her results based on the reference category, whether in respect of the reference category other categories are increasing or decreasing. Response: Thank you very much for the important comment. We have discussed the most important findings of the study including the results of the logistic regression beginning from Line # 316. Reviewer 2: 1. In the abstract, authors should consider a comma before including. Contrary to the statement that little is known about determinants of unmet need for family planning in the study area, much research study has been done. Discard the repetition of Ethiopia. Change primary outcome to response variable or outcome variable. The adjusted odds ratio should be in decimal (AOR=3), it should be 3.0. Authors should check power of the test, looking at the confidence interval, p-value and effect size. Response: Thank you very much. We have addressed it. 2. Introduction session: Grammatical blunders frequent often. In the conceptualization of unmet need, the statement "women either who wishes.... The key problems associated with the issue of unmet need for family planning were not discussed. Apart from that, the argument that much research has not been done is not convincing and evidence-based. Many research has been done on determinants of unmet need for family planning in this context. As such, authors need to argue clearly and make the problem statement and research gap convincing. Also, the authors should provide a clear context for the research. There should be clear justification for researching married women in the urban context. Unmet need for family planning varies significantly..... (references) missing. The authors have a weak academic writing style and sloppy statement. The authors wrote there were studies without reference in Ethiopian context? Thus, why this study? The authors should state the current state of evidence in the study area and argue clearly on what is not known. Check grammar eligible for or to? Line 115, each participant household was visited. Recorded as no response should be correct. Consider: socio-demographic and socio-economic? Response: Thank you very much for the constructive comments. We have rewritten the problem statement or research gap statement as presented in the last paragraph of the introduction. We have also addressed grammar in sentence construction. 3. Method session: The justification for the study area was not clearly stated. Data were checked for completeness The data analysis was progressed in such a way that primarily descriptive statistics to describe and ....check the sentence is clumsy and sloppy. There is an un-academic statement: candidate variable. What informed the choice of p<0.25 consideration for multivariate analysis. Why logistic regression? Is it binary, ordinal or multinomial? Response: Thank you. We have corrected statements. We have used logistic regression because outcome variable is categorical. 4. Results: The descriptive statistics and interpretation should be reduced. Authors should check the presentation of results at the three levels of analysis. The results should follow the objectives of the study. Response: Thank you for the comment. We have presented the findings of the study based on the aim or research objective. Primarily, we have presented the characteristics of study participants followed by the outcome variable and associated factors. 5. Discussion: This section was poorly written. The introductory paragraph should focus on the overall aim of the study and what was found. Each of the objectives should be considered in each paragraph. The authors should present results, comparison with previous studies, plausible explanation for divergence and convergence of results. The authors should consider date of publication, study population, settings, sample size in providing possible reasons for deviation of results. There are many counter-intuitive results. Thus, there is a need to explore the reasons for the deviation. Authors should consider the statement: the odds of having unmet need for family planning was more likely among women who desire to have fewer children. Does not should be written in full in formal writing, such as this. The study has no policy implications, discussion on social reality of effect size and other confounders. Response: Thank you very much. Discussion is organized in such a way that in the first paragraph we have summarized the main findings of the study based on the objectives and in the successive paragraph we have discussed each of the main finings, compared findings with other related finings, explain discrepancies and tried to show implications of the findings. 6. Conclusion: There was no clear philosophic stance in the conclusion. Many blanket statements were made in a sweeping manner. APA format of referencing should be followed. Response: Thank you for the comment. We have revised conclusion statements. Because the journals requirement is Vancouver style of referencing, we have used it. Kind regards, Dawit Wolde Daka Corresponding Author E-mail: dave86520@gmail.com 31th October, 2021 To Editor PLOS ONE Subject: Submitting revised manuscript It is our great pleasure for the opportunity given to us to submit the revised version of the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the editors’ comments are presented as follows. 1. Can you develop the discussion a little more so that it will be relevant to global readers? Compare your results with other developing countries. For instance, use following references to make a comparative discussion. Response: Thank you very much, we have addressed it. 2. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. Response: Thank you very much, we have addressed it. 3. 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: Thank you. We have provided citations indicating list of references used in developing a questionnaire. Additionally, we have supplied the questionnaire as supporting information. 4. You indicated that you had ethical approval for your study. In your Methods section, please ensure you have also stated whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians of the minors included in the study or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. Response: Thank you. Informed written consent was taken from parents or guardians for minors as indicated in the revised manuscript (Line # 172-173). 5. In your Data Availability statement, you have not specified where the minimal data set underlying the results described in your manuscript can be found. PLOS defines a study's minimal data set as the underlying data used to reach the conclusions drawn in the manuscript and any additional data required to replicate the reported study findings in their entirety. All PLOS journals require that the minimal data set be made fully available. For more information about our data policy, please see http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability . Upon re-submitting your revised manuscript, please upload your study’s minimal underlying data set as either Supporting Information files or to a stable, public repository and include the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers within your revised cover letter. For a list of acceptable repositories, please see http://journals.plos.org/ plosone/s/data-availability# loc-recommended-repositories. Any potentially identifying patient information must be fully anonymized. Response: Thank you. We have supplied the minimal data set as supporting information file. 6. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Response: Thank you. We have addressed it. Kind regards, Dawit Wolde Daka Corresponding Author dave86520@gmail.com Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Editor.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260972.r002
22 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Srinivas Goli, Editor Unmet need for family planning and associated factors among currently married women of reproductive age in Bishoftu town, Eastern Ethiopia. PONE-D-21-23218R1 Dear Dr. Daka, 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, Srinivas Goli, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Considering my own reading and reviewers opinion, I am recommending this paper for publication in PLOS One. 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: Earlier comments have been addressed. Authors have really work hard. I recommend editor to publish the paper. ****** 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:** Tushar Dakua https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260972.r003
Formally Accepted
25 Nov 2021 Acceptance Letter - Srinivas Goli, Editor PONE-D-21-23218R1 Unmet need for family planning and associated factors among currently married women of reproductive age in Bishoftu town, Eastern Ethiopia. Dear Dr. Daka: 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. Srinivas Goli Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260972.r004

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