PONE-D-22-20553Factors that affect the utilisation of maternal healthcare in the Mchinji District of Malawi.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Stewart,

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Rajesh Raushan, 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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: The research work sounds a piece of scientific work, particularly for Malawi and similar setting. The table 1 presents good and clear picture of why some variables were chosen for further investigation. Although the percentages were explained in the text, but it would be good to present in table with background characteristics and N against each background characteristics.

In discussion section, the findings state that “… living 5-10km away is associated with 0.6 times the odds of…”, the interpretation of the odds ratio needs to refine.

Reviewer #2: The study was supposed to examine the utilisation of maternal health and various factors affecting the utilisation of these health services.

The paper is written in a very crisp form explaining the background, objectives, methodology, and conclusion. The method chosen for this particular study is completely justifying in the context of the objectives given. Table 2 onwards provided in the research paper clearly depicts what they are meant for. The discussion part of the paper is also written in a well-mannered.

Only two suggestions to improve or revise the paper are as follows-

1. Table 1 can be more elaborated in terms of the sample size and results in one or two lines.

2. The authors have mentioned that the findings can be taken into consideration for policy making. If it is possible to mention one or two major findings which are strongly needed for the policy imperatives will enhance the value of this paper.

The paper can be considered for publication.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Geeta Sahu

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PLOS ONE Paper Review.docx

Factors that affect the utilisation of maternal healthcare in the Mchinji District of Malawi.

PONE-D-22-20553R1

Dear Dr. Stewart,

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, other than the minor comments raised by one of the reviewers.

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,

Rajesh Raushan, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Authors are advised to work on the minor comments raised by one of the reviewers along with the required editing. Afterwards, it can be accepted for the possible publication. 

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: (No Response)

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #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

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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 #1: The preferable categories to show the socio-economic status are wealth quintile. If the present work has wealth status in quintile, it can also be shown in terms of "Poorest" which will show bottom 20% of the population followed by Poorer, Middle, Richer and Richest. The author can consult DHS reports for detail.

Similarly, education: if Respondent have 0 years of education, it can be categorized as Illiterate.

Reviewer #2: all the comments provided by the reviewer has been taken into the consideration and incorporated well.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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