PONE-D-22-19181Clients’ perspectives on the utilization  of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health services in primary health centers during COVID-19 pandemic in 10 States of Nigeria: A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Partly

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Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: -What was the basis or criteria of selection of the 10 communities in each LGA used as study sites?

-Was ethical approval for the study obtained from any Health Research and Ethics Committee (HREC)? Ethical approval is different from permission from health ministries and centers to perform a study. State clearly the HREC that approved the work with the approval number.

As regards the inclusion of women who registered as having received clinical services in the clinics per state before and after the pandemic started. It is important to state the range of years before the pandemic that was targeted in this study? Were women who had accessed these services 10years ago also identified and recruited?

-Table 2 claims to describe “the pattern of utilization of RMNCH services pre- and post-covid”. How did you make up for/exclude women who did not need some of these services before or after the pandemic? It is important to differentiate women who did not require the service from those who needed it but couldn’t access it. Reasons why some women in the study may not have needed antenatal care before the pandemic could be because they were not pregnant before the pandemic. A woman who utilized post-natal services before the pandemic may not have needed it after the pandemic because she had no delivery after the pandemic. How did you ascertain that “no-need for a service” has not influenced the pattern depicted in Table 2?

-Clearly state what confounders were adjusted for in Table 3?

- A copy of the study questionnaire should be included as a supplementary file to the reviewer to help assess the work better.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Clients’ perspectives on the utilization  of reproductive, maternal, neonatal, and child health services in primary health centers during COVID-19 pandemic in 10 States of Nigeria: A cross-sectional study

PONE-D-22-19181R1

Dear Dr. Okonofua,

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.

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Kind regards,

Kehinde S. Okunade

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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