Reviewer's report
Title:Socioeconomic status and mortality among cirrhosis patients: A Danish
nationwide cohort study
Version: 1Date:28 January 2009
Reviewer: Pia Makela
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Jepsen et al. is a high-quality study on an interesting, focused
subject. They set out to study how certain sociodemographic factors (marital
status, income, employment) affect survival of cirrhosis patients. This is a
worthwhile subject to study. They have the best possible data for studying this
research question, with the confounding factors and other variables selected with
care and expertise. They use appropriate methodology, and their analyses give
the answer to the question they posed. The text is well written and the language
is good. I have only minor comments to the authors.
Minor essential revisions
As there is no lack of space, and the analyses are simple and straight-forward,
there is no reason not to show the rest of the parameter estimates from the
estimated models now shown in Table 2 (the different indicators of cirrhosis
severity, gender, age, substance use diagnosis, comorbidity). Many of them
would be of equally high interest as those that are in the focus of the paper.
The logic is unclear in the sentence on p. 10 "The lack of data on socioeconomic
status at the time of cirrhosis diagnosis is another weakness because the
socioeconomic information from the calendar year before cirrhosis diagnosis
might have been affected by an already established cirrhosis, or it might have
predated the cirrhosis by up to one year". If the sociodemographic data from year
before cirrhosis diagnosis may have been affected by the cirrhosis diagnosis,
then the sociodemographic data at the time of the diagnosis may be even more
affected, and the data should rather come from previous years (which data the
authors have) rather than more recent times.
Discretionary revisions
Would "sociodemographic" be a better term for the three variables studied than
"socioeconomic", which most often is used to refer to income, education and
occupation?
Additional
The authors might find of interest a related article by the referee: Mäkelä P et al.
(2003) What underlies the high alcohol-related mortality of the disadvantaged:
high morbidity or poor survival? Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
57:981-986.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Reviewer's report
Title:Socioeconomic status and mortality among cirrhosis patients: A Danish
nationwide cohort study
Version: 1Date:28 January 2009
Reviewer: Pia Makela
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Jepsen et al. is a high-quality study on an interesting, focused
subject. They set out to study how certain sociodemographic factors (marital
status, income, employment) affect survival of cirrhosis patients. This is a
worthwhile subject to study. They have the best possible data for studying this
research question, with the confounding factors and other variables selected with
care and expertise. They use appropriate methodology, and their analyses give
the answer to the question they posed. The text is well written and the language
is good. I have only minor comments to the authors.
Minor essential revisions
As there is no lack of space, and the analyses are simple and straight-forward,
there is no reason not to show the rest of the parameter estimates from the
estimated models now shown in Table 2 (the different indicators of cirrhosis
severity, gender, age, substance use diagnosis, comorbidity). Many of them
would be of equally high interest as those that are in the focus of the paper.
The logic is unclear in the sentence on p. 10 "The lack of data on socioeconomic
status at the time of cirrhosis diagnosis is another weakness because the
socioeconomic information from the calendar year before cirrhosis diagnosis
might have been affected by an already established cirrhosis, or it might have
predated the cirrhosis by up to one year". If the sociodemographic data from year
before cirrhosis diagnosis may have been affected by the cirrhosis diagnosis,
then the sociodemographic data at the time of the diagnosis may be even more
affected, and the data should rather come from previous years (which data the
authors have) rather than more recent times.
Discretionary revisions
Would "sociodemographic" be a better term for the three variables studied than
"socioeconomic", which most often is used to refer to income, education and
occupation?
Additional
The authors might find of interest a related article by the referee: Mäkelä P et al.
(2003) What underlies the high alcohol-related mortality of the disadvantaged:
high morbidity or poor survival? Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
57:981-986.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Socioeconomic status and mortality among cirrhosis patients: A Danish
nationwide cohort study
Version: 1Date:28 January 2009
Reviewer: Pia Makela
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Jepsen et al. is a high-quality study on an interesting, focused
subject. They set out to study how certain sociodemographic factors (marital
status, income, employment) affect survival of cirrhosis patients. This is a
worthwhile subject to study. They have the best possible data for studying this
research question, with the confounding factors and other variables selected with
care and expertise. They use appropriate methodology, and their analyses give
the answer to the question they posed. The text is well written and the language
is good. I have only minor comments to the authors.
Minor essential revisions
As there is no lack of space, and the analyses are simple and straight-forward,
there is no reason not to show the rest of the parameter estimates from the
estimated models now shown in Table 2 (the different indicators of cirrhosis
severity, gender, age, substance use diagnosis, comorbidity). Many of them
would be of equally high interest as those that are in the focus of the paper.
The logic is unclear in the sentence on p. 10 "The lack of data on socioeconomic
status at the time of cirrhosis diagnosis is another weakness because the
socioeconomic information from the calendar year before cirrhosis diagnosis
might have been affected by an already established cirrhosis, or it might have
predated the cirrhosis by up to one year". If the sociodemographic data from year
before cirrhosis diagnosis may have been affected by the cirrhosis diagnosis,
then the sociodemographic data at the time of the diagnosis may be even more
affected, and the data should rather come from previous years (which data the
authors have) rather than more recent times.
Discretionary revisions
Would "sociodemographic" be a better term for the three variables studied than
"socioeconomic", which most often is used to refer to income, education and
occupation?
Additional
The authors might find of interest a related article by the referee: Mäkelä P et al.
(2003) What underlies the high alcohol-related mortality of the disadvantaged:
high morbidity or poor survival? Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
57:981-986.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests
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