-->PONE-D-24-28442-->-->Maternity Waiting Homes Utilization and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last one year in rural settings of Basona Worena District, Ethiopia: A cross sectional Study.-->-->PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ayele,

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 Apr 11 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:-->

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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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ermel Johnson, MD, MPH, PhDc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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3. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed:

 -https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39029-1

-https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265182

-https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ejhd/article/view/232044

In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: 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

**********

-->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: 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: Dear editor, thank you so much for your invitation.

And also I appreciate the authors for their efforts they made this study. However, I do not recommend the publication of this study in the current status so the authors should correct and respond to comments and question mentioned hereunder

Abstract

“owever, little is known in Ethiopia on the utilization of maternity waiting home among actual mothers who gave birth in rural settings and their involvement of the service utilization is not well explored.” revise this sentence

“In Ethiopia, the utilization of maternal waiting homes and its associated factors among women who gave birth in rural setting were not clearly described.” redundancy of the very earliest sentence.

Please, correct the tense error from the objective

“(>=5)”would be written in clear term.

“The overall maternity waiting home utilization was 56.7% which relatively low compare to previous studies” grammatical error.

Introduction

This section must be revised. It lacks consistency and coherence.

“Most of the scholars focused on estimating the intention and knowledge of mothers to utilize MWHs for their current delivery” cite this.

“However, little is known in Ethiopia on the utilization of MWHs among actual mothers who gave birth in rural settings and their involvement of the service utilization is not well explored. In Ethiopia, the utilization of maternal waiting homes and its associated factors among women who gave birth in rural setting were not clearly described. However, no study was found during the literature review period that had been shown in Basona worena district.” revise these sentences too. Pay attention.

Methods and materials

Please, use universally acceptable expressions, where all scientists can understand. For instance, what is 2015 E.C.?

Variables (Figure 2)?

The authors would cite the source of their tool and append their Cronbach's Alpha test value

Results:

The percentages of observations of some variables are not correct.

Replace “Reproductive health Characteristics of participants” by Obstetrics characteristics of participants. Because reproductive health is a broad term or not limited to the characteristics you mentioned in this study.

The independent variables depicted in the variable section and the result section are inconsistent.

Replace “Multivariate logistic regression” by factors associated with MHW utilization among participants.

Line 288-292 is the redundancy of data analysis method. The result section should only include results.

“Those mothers whose age category was aged between 26-30 years old were 0.22 times more likely to utilized MWH than those women whose age category was 36 and above (AOR=0.22,95% CI:0.08,0.65).” Check this interpretation

Put the row percentages of yes and no observation of MWH utilization in table 5

Discussion

Note that family size and parity are different variables.

Studies limitations would be mentioned under this section and remove the strength you have mentioned. A sampling technique that was based on your study’s nature and design should not mention as study’s strength.

Conclusion

The conclusion seems like results. Not appropriately written

some the recommendations are not based on your findings

Ethical approval

How could you take a written informed consent form those 33.5% your study participants who were unable to read and write? This should be clarified.

General suggestions

Figures are not numbered correctly.

Omit meaningless arrows from the figure that illustrated sampling procedure

The manuscript has serious grammar and punctuation errors. So the authors must use language edition services.

Reviewer #2: I feel the authors have done all the necessary corrections suggested. This is a very important topic, as worldwide, rural areas do not have access to healthcare easily, and this leads to worse maternal and neonatal complications. By having maternal waiting homes, outcomes are expected to be improved.

**********

-->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: No

Reviewer #2: 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.

-->PONE-D-24-28442R1-->-->Maternity Waiting Homes Utilization and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last one year in rural settings of Basona Worena District, Ethiopia: A cross sectional Study.-->-->PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ayele,

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 Jun 14 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:-->

• 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'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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,

Ermel Johnson, MD, MPH, PhDc

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.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Abstract

“owever, little is known in Ethiopia on the utilization of maternity waiting home among actual mothers who gave birth in rural settings and their involvement of the service utilization is not well explored.” revise this sentence

“In Ethiopia, the utilization of maternal waiting homes and its associated factors among women who gave birth in rural setting were not clearly described.” redundancy of the very earliest sentence.

Please, correct the tense error from the objective

“(>=5)”would be written in clear term.

“The overall maternity waiting home utilization was 56.7% which relatively low compare to previous studies” grammatical error.

Introduction

This section must be revised. It lacks consistency and coherence.

“Most of the scholars focused on estimating the intention and knowledge of mothers to utilize MWHs for their current delivery” cite this.

“However, little is known in Ethiopia on the utilization of MWHs among actual mothers who gave birth in rural settings and their involvement of the service utilization is not well explored. In Ethiopia, the utilization of maternal waiting homes and its associated factors among women who gave birth in rural setting were not clearly described. However, no study was found during the literature review period that had been shown in Basona worena district.” revise these sentences too. Pay attention.

Methods and materials

Please, use universally acceptable expressions, where all scientists can understand. For instance, what is 2015 E.C.?

Variables (Figure 2)?

The authors would cite the source of their tool and append their Cronbach's Alpha test value

Results:

The percentages of observations of some variables are not correct.

Replace “Reproductive health Characteristics of participants” by Obstetrics characteristics of participants. Because reproductive health is a broad term or not limited to the characteristics you mentioned in this study.

The independent variables depicted in the variable section and the result section are inconsistent.

Replace “Multivariate logistic regression” by factors associated with MHW utilization among participants.

Line 288-292 is the redundancy of data analysis method. The result section should only include results.

“Those mothers whose age category was aged between 26-30 years old were 0.22 times more likely to utilized MWH than those women whose age category was 36 and above (AOR=0.22,95% CI:0.08,0.65).” Check this interpretation

Put the row percentages of yes and no observation of MWH utilization in table 5

Discussion

Note that family size and parity are different variables.

Studies limitations would be mentioned under this section and remove the strength you have mentioned. A sampling technique that was based on your study’s nature and design should not mention as study’s strength.

Conclusion

The conclusion seems like results. Not appropriately written

some the recommendations are not based on your findings

Ethical approval

How could you take a written informed consent form those 33.5% your study participants who were unable to read and write? This should be clarified.

General suggestions

Figures are not numbered correctly.

Omit meaningless arrows from the figure that illustrated sampling procedure

The manuscript has serious grammar and punctuation errors. So the authors must use language edition services.

[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.

-->

Maternity Waiting Homes Utilization and associated factors among women who gave birth in the last one year in rural settings of Basona Worena District, Ethiopia: A cross sectional Study.

PONE-D-24-28442R2

Dear Dr. Ayele,

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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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,

Jianhong Zhou

Staff Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: