Reviewer's report
Title:The impact of Irritable Bowel Syndrome on health-related quality of life: A
Singapore perspective.
Version: 1Date:31 May 2012
Reviewer: Marco DiBonaventura
Reviewer's report:
The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between IBS and
health-related quality of life in Singapore. Although the topic is of interest, as data
on IBS in very limited in Asia, I have several concerns with this study as
summarized below.
Major compulsory revisions
1) I found the writing in need of improvement; typos and awkward sentences
made it the paper difficult to follow at times. I would strongly recommend an
editorial review by a member outside the research team prior to a resubmission.
2) The biggest concern I have is the lack of external validity. The study sample
was participants from the National Foundation for Digestive Diseases
Symposium. Although the authors acknowledge this threat to external validity, I
think this seriously compromises the interpretability of the findings. It can’t be
assumed that relationships between IBS and health-related quality of life would
be identical between the present sample of actively engaged patients attending a
digestive disease symposium and the general population.
3) I found the backwards stepwise method a curious choice. Any reason a
standard multiple regression model (using an enter method) was not used?
Given the criticisms of both backward and forward selection methods, I think
more detail on this decision is warranted.
4) The description of some of the results is odd (page 6, paragraph 4). It reads as
if health-related quality of life is a predictor of IBS (“The adjusted odds of having
IBS were 2.38 times greater for a person having some mobility problems as
opposed to a person having no mobility problems…”). I don’t believe the authors
are suggesting that mobility problems cause the appearance of IBS. Instead, I
think the authors are suggesting that IBS is associated with increased mobility
problems. As a result, I think the regressions are conducted incorrectly (or just
reported incorrectly).
Minor essential revisions
5) IBS has previously been linked to a number of comorbidities. More clarify
about how “significant illnesses” were assessed would be helpful. If it was merely
the presence versus absence of a “significant illness”, there may be an
overestimate in the health-related quality of life burden as a full range of
comorbidities was not assessed (using a Charlson comorbidity index or
something similar).
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:The impact of Irritable Bowel Syndrome on health-related quality of life: A
Singapore perspective.
Version: 1Date:31 May 2012
Reviewer: Marco DiBonaventura
Reviewer's report:
The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between IBS and
health-related quality of life in Singapore. Although the topic is of interest, as data
on IBS in very limited in Asia, I have several concerns with this study as
summarized below.
Major compulsory revisions
1) I found the writing in need of improvement; typos and awkward sentences
made it the paper difficult to follow at times. I would strongly recommend an
editorial review by a member outside the research team prior to a resubmission.
2) The biggest concern I have is the lack of external validity. The study sample
was participants from the National Foundation for Digestive Diseases
Symposium. Although the authors acknowledge this threat to external validity, I
think this seriously compromises the interpretability of the findings. It can’t be
assumed that relationships between IBS and health-related quality of life would
be identical between the present sample of actively engaged patients attending a
digestive disease symposium and the general population.
3) I found the backwards stepwise method a curious choice. Any reason a
standard multiple regression model (using an enter method) was not used?
Given the criticisms of both backward and forward selection methods, I think
more detail on this decision is warranted.
4) The description of some of the results is odd (page 6, paragraph 4). It reads as
if health-related quality of life is a predictor of IBS (“The adjusted odds of having
IBS were 2.38 times greater for a person having some mobility problems as
opposed to a person having no mobility problems…”). I don’t believe the authors
are suggesting that mobility problems cause the appearance of IBS. Instead, I
think the authors are suggesting that IBS is associated with increased mobility
problems. As a result, I think the regressions are conducted incorrectly (or just
reported incorrectly).
Minor essential revisions
5) IBS has previously been linked to a number of comorbidities. More clarify
about how “significant illnesses” were assessed would be helpful. If it was merely
the presence versus absence of a “significant illness”, there may be an
overestimate in the health-related quality of life burden as a full range of
comorbidities was not assessed (using a Charlson comorbidity index or
something similar).
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:The impact of Irritable Bowel Syndrome on health-related quality of life: A
Singapore perspective.
Version: 1Date:31 May 2012
Reviewer: Marco DiBonaventura
Reviewer's report:
The objective of this study was to examine the relationship between IBS and
health-related quality of life in Singapore. Although the topic is of interest, as data
on IBS in very limited in Asia, I have several concerns with this study as
summarized below.
Major compulsory revisions
1) I found the writing in need of improvement; typos and awkward sentences
made it the paper difficult to follow at times. I would strongly recommend an
editorial review by a member outside the research team prior to a resubmission.
2) The biggest concern I have is the lack of external validity. The study sample
was participants from the National Foundation for Digestive Diseases
Symposium. Although the authors acknowledge this threat to external validity, I
think this seriously compromises the interpretability of the findings. It can’t be
assumed that relationships between IBS and health-related quality of life would
be identical between the present sample of actively engaged patients attending a
digestive disease symposium and the general population.
3) I found the backwards stepwise method a curious choice. Any reason a
standard multiple regression model (using an enter method) was not used?
Given the criticisms of both backward and forward selection methods, I think
more detail on this decision is warranted.
4) The description of some of the results is odd (page 6, paragraph 4). It reads as
if health-related quality of life is a predictor of IBS (“The adjusted odds of having
IBS were 2.38 times greater for a person having some mobility problems as
opposed to a person having no mobility problems…”). I don’t believe the authors
are suggesting that mobility problems cause the appearance of IBS. Instead, I
think the authors are suggesting that IBS is associated with increased mobility
problems. As a result, I think the regressions are conducted incorrectly (or just
reported incorrectly).
Minor essential revisions
5) IBS has previously been linked to a number of comorbidities. More clarify
about how “significant illnesses” were assessed would be helpful. If it was merely
the presence versus absence of a “significant illness”, there may be an
overestimate in the health-related quality of life burden as a full range of
comorbidities was not assessed (using a Charlson comorbidity index or
something similar).
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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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