Title: Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Diagnosis of Constipation-predominant Irritable
Bowel Syndrome and Functional Constipation in Adults: A Scoping Review
Version: 1 Date: 07 Feb 2025
Reviewer's report:
The authors present a scoping review on clinical practice guidelines of constipation predominant
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C) and functional constipation (FC). This area is of great interest
as the authors correctly mention: currently used approaches and clinical diagnostic criteria do
not assess bowel habits (frequency of spontaneous bowel movements, presence of straining and
incomplete evacuation) in IBS-C and do not assess pain (frequency, intensity) granularly enough
in patients with FC - this makes diagnosing these conditions difficult, especially as they might
overlap in the same individual over time.
Unfortunately, the manuscript falls short in several domains:
Major:
1) The manuscript requires linguistic overhaul: currently, past and present tenses are mixed and
not consistently used
2) Statements are not consistently referenced (e.g. some statements regarding guidelines do not
include a reference to the respective reference).
3) The authors present overviews on whether guidelines various disease characteristics
(abdominal pain frequency etc.). This information would be of much greater value if presented
in a more detailed way: e.g. what was the pain frequency threshold to diagnose IBS-C (mean
and range of guidelines). This would paint a much more detailed picture of clinical guidelines
than merely show a figure of whether it was mentioned or not. I would encourage the authors
to show for all aspects shown in Figure 2 what the thresholds or recommendations were in the
guidelines that mentioned it.
4) The discussion is not concise and includes highly speculative aspects on microbiota etc. not
at all related to the present work.
Title: Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Diagnosis of Constipation-predominant Irritable
Bowel Syndrome and Functional Constipation in Adults: A Scoping Review
Version: 1 Date: 07 Feb 2025
Reviewer's report:
The authors present a scoping review on clinical practice guidelines of constipation predominant
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C) and functional constipation (FC). This area is of great interest
as the authors correctly mention: currently used approaches and clinical diagnostic criteria do
not assess bowel habits (frequency of spontaneous bowel movements, presence of straining and
incomplete evacuation) in IBS-C and do not assess pain (frequency, intensity) granularly enough
in patients with FC - this makes diagnosing these conditions difficult, especially as they might
overlap in the same individual over time.
Unfortunately, the manuscript falls short in several domains:
Major:
1) The manuscript requires linguistic overhaul: currently, past and present tenses are mixed and
not consistently used
2) Statements are not consistently referenced (e.g. some statements regarding guidelines do not
include a reference to the respective reference).
3) The authors present overviews on whether guidelines various disease characteristics
(abdominal pain frequency etc.). This information would be of much greater value if presented
in a more detailed way: e.g. what was the pain frequency threshold to diagnose IBS-C (mean
and range of guidelines). This would paint a much more detailed picture of clinical guidelines
than merely show a figure of whether it was mentioned or not. I would encourage the authors
to show for all aspects shown in Figure 2 what the thresholds or recommendations were in the
guidelines that mentioned it.
4) The discussion is not concise and includes highly speculative aspects on microbiota etc. not
at all related to the present work.
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Diagnosis of Constipation-predominant Irritable
Bowel Syndrome and Functional Constipation in Adults: A Scoping Review
Version: 1 Date: 07 Feb 2025
Reviewer's report:
The authors present a scoping review on clinical practice guidelines of constipation predominant
irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-C) and functional constipation (FC). This area is of great interest
as the authors correctly mention: currently used approaches and clinical diagnostic criteria do
not assess bowel habits (frequency of spontaneous bowel movements, presence of straining and
incomplete evacuation) in IBS-C and do not assess pain (frequency, intensity) granularly enough
in patients with FC - this makes diagnosing these conditions difficult, especially as they might
overlap in the same individual over time.
Unfortunately, the manuscript falls short in several domains:
Major:
1) The manuscript requires linguistic overhaul: currently, past and present tenses are mixed and
not consistently used
2) Statements are not consistently referenced (e.g. some statements regarding guidelines do not
include a reference to the respective reference).
3) The authors present overviews on whether guidelines various disease characteristics
(abdominal pain frequency etc.). This information would be of much greater value if presented
in a more detailed way: e.g. what was the pain frequency threshold to diagnose IBS-C (mean
and range of guidelines). This would paint a much more detailed picture of clinical guidelines
than merely show a figure of whether it was mentioned or not. I would encourage the authors
to show for all aspects shown in Figure 2 what the thresholds or recommendations were in the
guidelines that mentioned it.
4) The discussion is not concise and includes highly speculative aspects on microbiota etc. not
at all related to the present work.
assistant