https://orcid.org/0009-0006-1321-7614
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionAugust 10, 2024 |
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PONE-D-24-27116Prevalence and Determinants of Erectile Dysfunction among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage ZonePLOS ONE Dear Dr. ABRAR, 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: Thanks for submitting this manuscript to this esteemed journal. Based on the 3 reviews especially addressing the novelty about what this research adds to what is already known i suggest drafting and major revision Thanks ; ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 16 2024 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:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. 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, Kamal Sharma Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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. We note that the grant information you provided in the ‘Funding Information’ and ‘Financial Disclosure’ sections do not match. When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section. 3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "This research work was supported by Jimma university school of medical laboratory sciences, faculty of health science, and institute of health. The research received no funding and no specified grant number." Please state what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role, please state: ""The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."" If this statement is not correct you must amend it as needed. Please include this amended Role of Funder statement in your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 4. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please move it to the Methods section and delete it from any other section. Please ensure that your ethics statement is included in your manuscript, as the ethics statement entered into the online submission form will not be published alongside your manuscript. 5. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure. 6. Please include a copy of Table 3 and 5 which you refer to in your text on page 13 and 16. 7. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. Additional Editor Comments: Hello, Based on the reviewers comments the manuscript needs to undergo a major revision addressing all the issues raised by all the 3 reviewers Thanks [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 Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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: Please, in the abstract, method, instead of 204 diabetic patients, the wording should be corrected as 204 diabetic men. In the results, the same should be corrected. Two age groups under and over 40 years were considered. Please divide the age group above 40 years into subgroups and compare the prevalence between them. In the results, instead of blood sugar above 7, write A1C. Because this is how the method is perceived. Limitations should be mentioned. Reviewer #2: General comments This is an interesting study which highlighted the prevalence and predictors of ED among male patients with diabetes in three hospital in Ethiopia. However, a few issues may need to be addressed to strengthen the paper. Specific comments 1.Page 6, sample size determination: How representative is a convenience sample of 204 male type 2 DM patients in the study areas? It will be important to state the estimated number of male type 2 DM patients that usually attend the AH, BH and WKUSH hospitals in a four months period. Please include the sample size formula and the variables used for the calculation of sample size, so the reader can follow your calculation. 2.Page 7, exclusion criteria, figure 1: a.1st line: The statement “Study participants with the following disorder will exclude from the study” should read “Study participants with the following disorders were excluded from the study” b.“Exclusion criterias” should read “Exclusion criteria” since criteria is already a plural word. c.Menatlly Incompitent: has spelling error. Should read “Mentally incompetent”. However, what do you mean by mentally incompetent? Please rephrase for clarity. d.History of Deperession: should read “History of Depression”. e.Overt Psychlogical Disorder: should read “Overt Psychological Disorder” f.“Nurological” should be replaced by “Neurological” 3.Page 9. Data collection, line 3: what type of consent did you obtain from the participants? Was it written or verbal? This should be clearly stated. 4.Page 9, 4.7.1.1, socio-demographic, anthropometric and related clinical data: It will be important to clearly define smoking status, alcohol consumption, exercise status, and income. What is currently stated is still unclear. For instance, when you say smoker and non-smoker, what do you mean? Do you mean never ever smoked, stopped smoking 6 months ago, actively smoking, etc. There are standard definitions for these words and needs to be stated as such and also cite appropriate references from the literature to back your definitions. This will help the reproducibility of the study. RESULTS 5.Table 1, educational and occupational statuses, frequency columns do not total 100%. Please cross check. 6.Page 13, 5.3 prevalence of erectile dysfunction among the study participants: a.line 1: If 204 male T2DM patients were interviewed, how come 216 had T2DM and ED? Do you mean 156 instead of 216? Please cross-check. b.Lines 3-6: “Further analysis of the data showed that 48 men had no ED, 15 had mild ED, 28 had mild-to-moderate ED, 46 had moderate ED, and 67 had severe ED. The data also indicated that a maximum of 32.8% of men with diabetes had severe ED, while only 7.4% had a mild form of ED..” It will be important to include both the numbers and the full percentages of the ED severity types because it appears the figure presented shows summarized percentages. 7.Page 14, Table 4: what test was employed to determine the association between clinical variables and ED among study participants? From this table, it appears you applied a different statistical test other than bivariate logistic regression. It seems you used a chi-square test. Please clarify and possibly re-write your section 5.4. DISCUSSION 8.Page 19, paragraph 3: No need to restate the AOR, 95%CI and P value in the discussion. This also applies to the last paragraph and elsewhere. 9.Strength and limitations of the study: the convenience sampling technique presents a limitation towards generalising the study result. Given the selection bias, those who participated may be significantly different from those who did not. Reviewer #3: This is a work about the prevalence and determinants of ED among T2D patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage Zone. Anyway, no novelties about this topic are producted. I have comments and suggestions. Abstract - please, as suggested by international guidelines, replace here and in the manuscript, diabetic with subjects/patients with diabetes (T2D). Introduction - "it remains uncertain whether erectile dysfunction (ED) in diabetic males stems solely from hyperglycemia and microvascular complications or arises from a combination of factors such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, smoking, and obesity". Vs 2010, now we have more scientific data to prove these combinations. Materials and methods ( very long! ) Inclusion/exclusion criteria: You insert T2D as an exclusioon criteria. Please, check! Discussion - some parts of results are here too. - please, clarify better strenghts and limitations of this work, not after conclusions section. Editorial guidelines needs to be checked. Check acronyms as type 2 diabetes ********** 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: Maryam Zahedi, Assistant Professor of Endocrinology & Metabolism, Clinical Research Development Unit (CRDU), Sayad Shirazi Hospital, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran. Tel: +98 9111778058 Email: drmaryam.zahedi@yahoo.com Reviewer #2: Yes: Godpower Chinedu Michael Reviewer #3: 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. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-24-27116R1Prevalence and Determinants of Erectile Dysfunction among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage Zone PLOS ONE Dear Dr. ABDLSHIKURE , 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. ============================== Hello, The authors need to address the important points raised by our reviewers even though they have revised many of the previous aspects. 1. In the results section, the prevalence of ED in a previous study used for their calculation of sample size as 84.39%; they affirm that it is important to include the decimal places. However, they fail to provide such information here. The information in both Figure 2 and the text is incomplete or rather incorrect and misleading, which requires correction. For instance, the “no ED as 48 (23%)” should be “no ED as 48 (23.5%)”. The authors cannot trivialise this matter, given the status of this journal. 2. The authors did not appear to recognise that the discussion section is to interpret the study results (what do findings mean in the context of current evidence, practice and policy?) and not to state ODDS RATIO or sections of the result here. Please address the same before acceptance. Thanks ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 02 2024 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:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. 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, Kamal Sharma Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 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. Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Hello, The authors need to address the important points raised by our reviewers even though they have revised many of the previous aspects. 1. In the results section, the prevalence of ED in a previous study used for their calculation of sample size as 84.39%; they affirm that it is important to include the decimal places. However, they fail to provide such information here. The information in both Figure 2 and the text is incomplete or rather incorrect and misleading, which requires correction. For instance, the “no ED as 48 (23%)” should be “no ED as 48 (23.5%)”. The authors cannot trivialise this matter, given the status of this journal. 2. The authors did not appear to recognise that the discussion section is to interpret the study results (what do findings mean in the context of current evidence, practice and policy?) and not to state ODDS RATIO or sections of the result here. Please address the same before acceptance. Thanks [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: (No Response) Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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: with respect I am very grateful to be allowed to be a reviewer of the valuable Plos One journal. I enjoyed reading this article. A well-chosen topic that is useful. Here are some things to improve the article, which I hope will be corrected before acceptance: - Is it necessary to include the word Gurage in the keyword section? In the introduction, at the end of the second paragraph, 1.3 million diabetics should be added instead of 1.3 million diabetes. - In the text of the article, it is better to mention diabetes in one form, for example, diabetes mellitus, or preferably after the first time as DM. - According to the article's cross-sectional nature, the abstract's results should mention only association instead of saying that these factors were known as predisposing factors leading to erectile dysfunction. - In the exclusion criteria, "mentally incompetent" has spelling forms that should be corrected. - Why is type 2 diabetes written in the exclusion criteria? This is an apparent mistake that needs to be corrected because you have precisely done the study on people with type 2 diabetes. Maybe you mean type 1 diabetes? - As it was said about the results in the article's abstract, in the discussion about the factors associated with erectile dysfunction, do not use terms that mean causality and only mention the association, for example, about age. - Please write down which edition of ADA you used to define diabetes control. Although the definition may not have changed clearly, you should clarify which version you used. - In the analyses, if available, it would have been better to use the continuous values of the variables to check their relationship with erectile dysfunction. Reviewer #2: 1. In the results section, the authors have not corrected the summarised results I mentioned. For instance, the authors cited the prevalence of ED in a previous study used for their calculation of sample size as 84.39%; they affirm that it is important to include the decimal places. However, they fail to provide such information here. The information in both Figure 2 and the text is incomplete or rather incorrect and misleading, which requires correction. For instance, the “no ED as 48 (23%)” should be “no ED as 48 (23.5%)”. The authors cannot trivialise this matter, given the status of this journal. 2. The authors did not appear to recognise that the discussion section is to interpret the study results (what do findings mean in the context of current evidence, practice and policy?) and not to state ODDS RATIO or sections of the result here. This issue was not resolved in their response and should also not be trivialised. Reviewer #3: All the queries were fully replied. Please, revise better the English language before to complete the sumbission. ********** 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: Yes: Godpower Chinedu Michael Reviewer #3: 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.
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| Revision 2 |
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PONE-D-24-27116R2Prevalence and Determinants of Erectile Dysfunction among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage Zone:A cross-sectional studyPLOS ONE Dear Dr. ABDLSHIKURE , 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 Jan 13 2025 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:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols . Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. 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, Kamal Sharma Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 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. Additional Editor Comments: Hello, Though the revised manuscript is much better than the first version, the comments of the reviewer need to be addressed before final decision. Thanks [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 #4: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #5: (No Response) Reviewer #6: (No Response) ********** 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 #4: Yes Reviewer #5: Yes Reviewer #6: Partly ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #4: Yes Reviewer #5: Yes Reviewer #6: 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 #4: Yes Reviewer #5: No Reviewer #6: 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 #4: Yes Reviewer #5: Yes Reviewer #6: No ********** 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 #4: This second version of the paper is a great improvement, the authors are to be commended. The manuscript has been much improved and is in a nice condition now. Reviewer #5: Seid Abrar A and colleagues presented a research article entitled ‘Prevalence and Determinants of Erectile Dysfunction among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage Zone: A cross-sectional study’. In the paper, they found the prevalence and contributing factors of ED in individuals with T2DM in the Gurage Zone. some modifications need to be supplemented. Addressing the below concerns are mandatory to improve the quality of the paper, especially to support the statement the authors made: 1.In the “ABSTRACT” part Line 34, “overweight, obesity, duration of diabetes greater than 5 years, uncontrolled diabetes…” should be corrected definition. The Abstract section should be streamlined thoroughly. 2. in Page 6 Line 102, was the loss of follow-up considered in sample estimation? 3. in Page 7 Line 133, use the “2 or more bottles daily” to define “alcohol drinking” is improper. Please use the “milliliters per day” or “ml/d” to define. 4. There are obvious errors that affect the reliability of the results. in Page 11, the sum of “Educational Status” and “Occupational Status” were not 100%. in Page 12, the sum of “Duration of diabetes” was not 100%. Please check the full manuscript carefully. 5. in Page 16, two columns including the frequency of Erectile Dysfunction “no” and “yes” should be added between the “category” and “AOR” column. 6. Many errors in punctuation and paragraph formatting, please check the full manuscript carefully. Reviewer #6: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and review this interesting article. It highlights an important area, which is often overlocked. Overall concerns: Throughout the article there is major negligence concerning punctuation (sometimes spaces are missing and sometimes they are superfluous), use of capital letters, bold letters i.e. line 5, 116), and paragraphs etc. This gives an overall impression of the article as inattentive. The English language is not up to standards (i.e line 74, 90, 116, 117, 120, 121, 122). Even though previous reviewers have pointed out the use of abbreviation T2DM, this is not consistent (i.e line 57, 92). The statistical reporting does not meet guidelines from the journal. Table 2 seems to be divided in to two. CI are sometimes presented with .000 and sometimes with .00. Table 4 does not meet requirements. Avoid words as only, high and low (i.e. line 335), who says that 68,7% is low? Ethical concerns: The sample size calculation does not include any drop out. Why? Did you not have any/expect any drop out, no missing values? These questions translate to the inclusion process and raises serious ethical concerns. Patients were “requested to give their consent”. Maybe it is the word requested that are not appropriate. Please revise. How many patients did not give their consent, or did all patients accept participation? Why are not written consent taken? I do not believe that the argument for only verbal consent holds as it stands. Why does not the participants complete the questionnaires themselves, specially concerning a sensitive topic as erectile function? This could potentially affect the answers given, and no discussion are held on this in the limitations section. As I read the statement in the manuscript the study has been approved by the institutional review board at a university? Is this an ethical committee, evaluating ethics? As I read the manuscript there is contradict information concerning the action taken if patients presented with ED (line 132,198). Were they referred to the physician or was it up to the patient to raise the question with their physician? Introduction: The definition of ED does not have a reference. What is successful intercourse? Penetration? Throughout the article I find that an ambiguity if ED is a disease (line 61, 330), a complication of the diabetes (397) or could it be a symptom? Method: I would like a more extensive description of the setting as the study is set in a specific area. What is the Gurage zone? What characterizes this area? This would give the results bearing in other similar areas internationally. When was the patients approached more specifically? When there were at the hospital, but why were they at the hospital? Did they seek acute care or had a scheduled appointment? Inclusion/exclusion criteria’s: Why are only heterosexual men in stable relationships included? No explanation or discussion are held on this matter. ED are not limited to this group but extend to men with other sexual orientation and relationships status. This inclusion criteria do not match the result section (Table 1), were 41% are reported as single (and separated and divorced are other options). It is unclear if these patients are in stable sexual relationships? Figure 1: You excluded patients with ED having endocrine and neurological causes. Is not diabetes an endocrine cause leading to neurological complications? Are those not the ones you sought for this study? Please explain further. Why is Type 1 DM in another style than the other? As previous reviewer has pointed out, turning variables that are continuous in to dichotomous, i.e. alcohol consumption, holds risks. Consumer of alcohol are set at two bottles or more a day. Two bottles of what? Please describe this further. Line 184. How were the variables checked for missing values and distribution? What were the results? Result: Why report occupation? Is this relevant? If so, are those reported the only occupations? How can house wife be an occupation if there were only men in the study? Line 204. “Almost half of them, 52.9%”. 52.9% is more than half. Remove Figure 2 or remove the text describing the same information. Line 264. Table 3. Are these results in line with the aim of this study? How did you gain this information? I recommend removing line 294-304 and only present this information in a table. Discussion: I would like to have had a discussion concerning how your results in men with diabetes differs from the general population concerning determinants. Are not these similar to determinants in other populations in regard to age, overweight, alcohol consumption etc.? You result concerning smoking is very interesting, and I would like a more extensive discussion on this topic. There is sound research on the effects on smoking, which could serve as a basis for this discussion. Strengths and limitations: This section needs further work raising limitations on methodological/ethical issues. You report that bias may occur, but nothing on how this risk has been minimized. Please elaborate. Conclusion: The conclusion needs to be shorted. I recommend removing the first paragraph for start. The conclusion on antihypertension - does this align with your results? Line 426-427 is a valid point, but not belong in the conclusion, but should be elaborated on in the limitation section. Minor: Only one reference but refers to studies (line 53). What is the definition of chronic medical illness (line 71)? Line 112-115 are setting not sample size and sampling. Why to different names on IIEF/SHIM. Choose one and stick with that. ********** 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 . 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| Revision 3 |
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Prevalence and Determinants of Erectile Dysfunction among Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Patients at Selected Government Hospitals in Gurage Zone:A cross-sectional study PONE-D-24-27116R3 Dear Dr. ABDLSHIKURE , 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. 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Kind regards, Kamal Sharma Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Hello, After 3 rigorous rounds of revision , the current version is well drafted and addresses most of the concerns raised by the reviewers in all the review activity. The current version is good to go for editorial desk review prior to final acceptance Thanks 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 #5: 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 #5: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #5: 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 #5: 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 #5: 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 #5: The manuscript has been improved and all criticisms satisfactorily answered. Some minor English mistakes still remain. ********** 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 #5: No ********** |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-24-27116R3 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Abdlshikure, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Kamal Sharma Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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