Peer Review History
Original SubmissionJanuary 23, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-02507 Hypertension in southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study from in Wolaita PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kumma, 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. The manuscript has been evaluated by two reviewers, and their comments are available below. The reviewers have raised a number of concerns that need attention. They request additional information on methodological aspects of the study and the interpretation of the results. Please pay particular attention to the reviewers' requests to clarify the main research question of your study, i.e. the prevalence of hypertension versus systolic/diastolic blood pressure. Could you please revise the manuscript to carefully address the concerns raised? Please submit your revised manuscript by May 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:
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: http://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, Dario Ummarino, Ph.D. Senior 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 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "No: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." At this time, please address the following queries:
Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. We note that you have stated that you will provide repository information for your data at acceptance. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, we will hold it until you provide the relevant accession numbers or DOIs necessary to access your data. If you wish to make changes to your Data Availability statement, please describe these changes in your cover letter and we will update your Data Availability statement to reflect the information you provide. [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ********** 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: No ********** 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 ********** 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: Thank you very much for giving me opportunity to revise this paper. Hypertension in southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study from in Wolaita The title, introduction, discussion are all on hypertension straight away. However, the objective and statistics, methods and results are on the level of systolic and diastolic blood pressure. This is confusing because these are two different issues. Thus the paper is on tow different objectives. Authors wrongly cited articles on hypertension as if these are on systolic and diastolic blood pressure. I have gone through your references, non of them is on systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Reviewer #2: Title ----I think community based cross-sectional study is enough delete from in Wolita Abstract: objective Line 23---if your aim was to assess factors associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure, best study design is case control but you use cross-sectional why? --You assessed systolic and diastolic blood pressure or systolic and diastolic high blood pressure? Line 32---In your result you start about prevalence of hypertension, but your objective was systolic and diastolic blood pressure, if it is not about high blood pressure how you could talk about hypertension??? Is this consistent? Line/no 33-34----your mean systolic BP was 130.5 with CI of 129.8-131.3mmHg; is this hypertension?? Because as my understanding and as your category this is under prehypertension. What you say on this?? You calculate mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure from over all but it is good if you calculate from those above 140(systolic) or high blood pressure and similarly to diastolic above 90. Your document lacks consistency ---for example in objective you said to compare systolic and diastolic blood pressure among urban and rural but in your method section you said to assess variation of prevalence of hypertension among urban and rural. Which one is your focus? 154---Data collection----narrating all issue is I think boring, so try to minimize it 186------not suitable for ht measurement was excluded—what is not suitable and suitable??? Please clearly mention it. 157---I think you adapt your survey questions from WHO steps survey not prepared, are you prepared or adapt? Result section— Mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure—what is the importance of assessing the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure? What is the public health importance of the mean value of systolic and diastolic blood pressure? 337---Those not aware of their hypertension were 30.9% and self-report was 3%: according to your operational definition it was 33.9% but yours is 32.9%; what makes this difference? Line 317---table 3 demonstrates…..participants.—rather it is good you simply write issues you put under table 3 and at last or end of paragraph refer to table 3 or put in bracket like(see table 3) Line 318-320---In your operational definition you put normal value and what hyper…means. I think it is not necessary to write this issue in this part. Almost in all your result you include or write exact value of participant and total sample size. Example in line 321 589 0f 2483; but the sample size or your study participant are known or you tell us at the beginning of your result so it is good you put number and percent with out your total sample size or participant. -line 329-331 Factors associated with…… and table 4 and 5 heading is not shows us associated factors please revise it. Line 356 or table 4 you show us distribution of systolic and diastolic blood pressure or hypertension and in urban ---for stage I HTN=9.7 and stage II=6.8 totally ===16.5 For rural---stage I=10.2 and stage II=4.2 totally===14.4 according to your operational definition prevalence of hypertension is 16.5% newly diagnosed plus self report 5.2=21.7% for urban and 14.4% new plus 0.8% self report =15.2% for rural. But your prevalence is different from this, how you calculate this? Are you include pre-hypertension?? If so is this right? Additionally you reported self report 3% but in your table it is 6%(0.8% rural and 5.2% urban) what makes this difference? Again on residence variable both urban and rural row there is summation error please see and revise it. Line 374---Similar comment as line 317 Starting from line 396----- you tell us about factors associated with systolic as well as diastolic blood pressure that is including normal blood pressure, so what is public health importance and what you recommend based on this?? Factors associated with mean systolic and mean diastolic blood pressure including normal why? I didn’t see any discussion issue about isolated systolic hypertension and isolated diastolic hypertension why? Table 7 ---editorial issue, it is mean diastolic blood pressure Strength and limitation Starting from line 509----please try to minimize it. Avoid unnecessary issue, some you included under strength are not strength and it is your sampling technique and others are about method, so please revise it. Line 534---advancing age or advanced age Finally---your title is about Hypertension in southern Ethiopia, your objective is to assess factors associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure and compare the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures among rural and urban populations and you conclude as prevalence of hypertension in Wolita was high. How you see these?? Your objective was not about high blood pressure but simply systolic and diastolic blood pressure and through out your document you tell us about this issue, so how it could be about hypertension?? ********** 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. |
Revision 1 |
PONE-D-21-02507R1 Hypertension, and blood pressure in southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study PLOS ONE Dear authors/editorial staff members/Editor in chief! 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 Aug 13 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:
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: http://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, Wali Khan 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): Dear authors/editorial staff members/Editor in chief! I would like to inform you that I have reached my decision that the manuscript numbered cited in the subject above is based on scientific background and fulfil and satisfy the standard of PLOS ONE for publication. I have checked out the points of reviewers raised during revision and responses given by the author(s) against each point. I am satisfied by the response of the author(s) for the points raised. As according to the reviewers comments objectives were not similar to the title and thus the findings were not related to the objectives and lack of consistency in the paper but this is now addressed by the authors accordingly. As Academic editor of this manuscript I decided to publish this submission in PLOS ONE. [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: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ********** 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: No ********** 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 ********** 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: I suggest to accept it in the current form. Authors succeeded to response to all of the raised points Reviewer #2: Minor comment Result Line 371---mean(SD) it is good if you write like 130.5 ±0.4 Discussion Line 476-478---Why you raised this issue? Because as you told us this was not assed in your study. So it is good if you delete it. Strength Line 509---judgment of causality?? Your study design is cross-sectional how it could be??? As my perception it is good you minimize or summarize it and make your strength & limitation to one paragraph Conclusion Line 536—you write modifiable risk factors but it is good if you indicate this statement above (line 529) when you listing factors associated with blood pressure. Because this is conclusion so it is good if you show us those risk factors you identified in your study as modifiable and non-modifiable. Reference Line 596—reference 10—randomly I checked this reference and for this article there is authors so, it is good if you see and revise it. ********** 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: Ishag Adam 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. |
Revision 2 |
PONE-D-21-02507R2 Hypertension and blood pressure in southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Kumma: 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. You please should make all the changes in the tables and analysis suggested. Please ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact. For Lab, Study and Registered Report Protocols: These article types are not expected to include results but may include pilot data. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Oct 11 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:
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: http://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, Rosely Sichieri Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Additional Editor Comments (if provided): I am sorry to say that my understand is that this revised version still requires many changes. The paper is too long, and it lacks focus. 1- There is no need of looking at levels of blood pressure and prevalence. Authors should keep only prevalence analysis. All diastolic and systolic analysis should be deleted. 2- Title should be changed - prevalence of hypertension in adults of xxxx and related factors. 3- The aim as written is to compare urban and rural areas??? This is not true. The aim is to determine prevalence of hypertension and pre-hypertension and related factors. 4-multilevel analysis should be explained/ Was it used to account for the complex design? Are weighting included??? The ICC data is not necessary to show the intracluster? Complex surveys have specific programs called survey in SAS and Stata. They should be used. 4- Keep only the factors related to hypertension in the introduction and adjust for those factors that make sense. Multivariate analysis adjusting all for all make no sense. 5- Tables are wrong. Prevalences in the new tables by each factor should be showed. Not percentages in the column. 6- No need of table 1. Make the first the prevalence of hypertension and pre-hypertension by characteristics of the population. Weighted prevalence. 7- 7- the same for tables 2 and 3. All should be combined in one also with the prevalence by factors. Excluded all lipids and family store. 8- No need of table 4 and 5. 9- Review all the results and discussion after new analysis [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [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 3 |
Prevalence of hypertension, and related factors among adults in Wolaita, southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study PONE-D-21-02507R3 Dear Dr. Kumma, 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, Rosely Sichieri Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Thanks for accepting all the suggestions. Please, in the final version exclude the last column in table 3 (p-value) not needed. The CI has the same meaning. Also in this table change No- for number of participants for N. Reviewers' comments: |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-21-02507R3 Prevalence of hypertension, and related factors among adults in Wolaita, southern Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study Dear Dr. Kumma: 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. Rosely Sichieri Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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