Reviewer's report
Title:A self administered reliable questionnaire to assess lower bowel symptoms
Version: 1Date:20 November 2007
Reviewer: Ioannis Mouzas
Reviewer's report:
General
There are several studies on differentiating between functional and
non-functional bowel disease on the grounds of the symptoms. Already since the
70’s the so-called Manning criteria approach was one of the first efforts to utilize
patients’ symptom clusters in order to differentiate between disease groups.
This manuscript deals with the development and first validation of a self
administered questionnaire on lower bowel symptoms. It was validated in
patients attending gastroenterologists or surgeons, before most probably being
submitted to a colonoscopy.
The methods used for the creation of the questionnaire and for its validation are
the standard ones. An advanced statistic evaluation was performed in order to
assess test-retest reliability, content validity, and criterion validity. Besides
test-retest within patients, agreement was also assessed between patients and
their doctors. This last comparison is a very original one that should be listed in
the strengths of this study.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Compulsory Revisions (that the author must respond to before a decision
on publication can be reached: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of
a term, which the author can be trusted to correct): No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Revisions (which the author can choose to ignore): The possible
use of this or any other questionnaire as an instrument to elicit symptoms that
may be used to predict colorectal cancer (as suggested by Selvachandran et al
Lancet 2002) is not supported by the evidence. In any case, the data are
inconsistent. Much more, there is an important implementation of this simple and
valid questionnaire: its use by physicians as a guide of the clinical history (filled
out as interviewer-administered questionnaire or by the patient, as in the present
study) so as no symptoms are left non-assessed during the clinical consultation. I
think that this point should be dealt more in depth in the discussion section.
What next?: Accept after discretionary revisions
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:A self administered reliable questionnaire to assess lower bowel symptoms
Version: 1Date:20 November 2007
Reviewer: Ioannis Mouzas
Reviewer's report:
General
There are several studies on differentiating between functional and
non-functional bowel disease on the grounds of the symptoms. Already since the
70’s the so-called Manning criteria approach was one of the first efforts to utilize
patients’ symptom clusters in order to differentiate between disease groups.
This manuscript deals with the development and first validation of a self
administered questionnaire on lower bowel symptoms. It was validated in
patients attending gastroenterologists or surgeons, before most probably being
submitted to a colonoscopy.
The methods used for the creation of the questionnaire and for its validation are
the standard ones. An advanced statistic evaluation was performed in order to
assess test-retest reliability, content validity, and criterion validity. Besides
test-retest within patients, agreement was also assessed between patients and
their doctors. This last comparison is a very original one that should be listed in
the strengths of this study.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Compulsory Revisions (that the author must respond to before a decision
on publication can be reached: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of
a term, which the author can be trusted to correct): No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Revisions (which the author can choose to ignore): The possible
use of this or any other questionnaire as an instrument to elicit symptoms that
may be used to predict colorectal cancer (as suggested by Selvachandran et al
Lancet 2002) is not supported by the evidence. In any case, the data are
inconsistent. Much more, there is an important implementation of this simple and
valid questionnaire: its use by physicians as a guide of the clinical history (filled
out as interviewer-administered questionnaire or by the patient, as in the present
study) so as no symptoms are left non-assessed during the clinical consultation. I
think that this point should be dealt more in depth in the discussion section.
What next?: Accept after discretionary revisions
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:A self administered reliable questionnaire to assess lower bowel symptoms
Version: 1Date:20 November 2007
Reviewer: Ioannis Mouzas
Reviewer's report:
General
There are several studies on differentiating between functional and
non-functional bowel disease on the grounds of the symptoms. Already since the
70’s the so-called Manning criteria approach was one of the first efforts to utilize
patients’ symptom clusters in order to differentiate between disease groups.
This manuscript deals with the development and first validation of a self
administered questionnaire on lower bowel symptoms. It was validated in
patients attending gastroenterologists or surgeons, before most probably being
submitted to a colonoscopy.
The methods used for the creation of the questionnaire and for its validation are
the standard ones. An advanced statistic evaluation was performed in order to
assess test-retest reliability, content validity, and criterion validity. Besides
test-retest within patients, agreement was also assessed between patients and
their doctors. This last comparison is a very original one that should be listed in
the strengths of this study.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Major Compulsory Revisions (that the author must respond to before a decision
on publication can be reached: No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of
a term, which the author can be trusted to correct): No
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Discretionary Revisions (which the author can choose to ignore): The possible
use of this or any other questionnaire as an instrument to elicit symptoms that
may be used to predict colorectal cancer (as suggested by Selvachandran et al
Lancet 2002) is not supported by the evidence. In any case, the data are
inconsistent. Much more, there is an important implementation of this simple and
valid questionnaire: its use by physicians as a guide of the clinical history (filled
out as interviewer-administered questionnaire or by the patient, as in the present
study) so as no symptoms are left non-assessed during the clinical consultation. I
think that this point should be dealt more in depth in the discussion section.
What next?: Accept after discretionary revisions
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the
statistics.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
assistant