Reviewer's report
Title:Factors associated with consultation behaviour for primary symptoms
potentially indicating colorectal cancer: A cross-sectional study on response to
symptoms.
Version: 2Date:19 June 2012
Reviewer: Alice Simon
Reviewer's report:
The authors' provide helpful justifications in their response to the review. It has
been especially useful to see the questionnaire. However, many of the responses
to the review do not have a corresponding change in the manuscript - see
response to point 3 (5-year recall), 4 (early-help seeking definitions), and 6 (study
participant exclusions). I understand that there are space limitations, but the
paper would be improved if greater justification for the methodological decisions
were included.
The paper would also benefit from a larger discussion of the methodological
limitations. As both reviewers commented on the problem of 5-year recall, it
would be particularly useful to have this topic explored in more detail in the
discussion. In the authors' response they note that previous studies have used
this cut-off. Which previous studies? This should be made clear in the text. That
this cut-off has been used before gives some support to the method, but it is not
a complete justification. After all, shouldn't we be striving for methodological
improvements?
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:Factors associated with consultation behaviour for primary symptoms
potentially indicating colorectal cancer: A cross-sectional study on response to
symptoms.
Version: 2Date:19 June 2012
Reviewer: Alice Simon
Reviewer's report:
The authors' provide helpful justifications in their response to the review. It has
been especially useful to see the questionnaire. However, many of the responses
to the review do not have a corresponding change in the manuscript - see
response to point 3 (5-year recall), 4 (early-help seeking definitions), and 6 (study
participant exclusions). I understand that there are space limitations, but the
paper would be improved if greater justification for the methodological decisions
were included.
The paper would also benefit from a larger discussion of the methodological
limitations. As both reviewers commented on the problem of 5-year recall, it
would be particularly useful to have this topic explored in more detail in the
discussion. In the authors' response they note that previous studies have used
this cut-off. Which previous studies? This should be made clear in the text. That
this cut-off has been used before gives some support to the method, but it is not
a complete justification. After all, shouldn't we be striving for methodological
improvements?
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:Factors associated with consultation behaviour for primary symptoms
potentially indicating colorectal cancer: A cross-sectional study on response to
symptoms.
Version: 2Date:19 June 2012
Reviewer: Alice Simon
Reviewer's report:
The authors' provide helpful justifications in their response to the review. It has
been especially useful to see the questionnaire. However, many of the responses
to the review do not have a corresponding change in the manuscript - see
response to point 3 (5-year recall), 4 (early-help seeking definitions), and 6 (study
participant exclusions). I understand that there are space limitations, but the
paper would be improved if greater justification for the methodological decisions
were included.
The paper would also benefit from a larger discussion of the methodological
limitations. As both reviewers commented on the problem of 5-year recall, it
would be particularly useful to have this topic explored in more detail in the
discussion. In the authors' response they note that previous studies have used
this cut-off. Which previous studies? This should be made clear in the text. That
this cut-off has been used before gives some support to the method, but it is not
a complete justification. After all, shouldn't we be striving for methodological
improvements?
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.
assistant