Submited on: 25 Feb 2011 06:51:42 AM GMT
Published on: 25 Feb 2011 10:24:52 PM GMT
 

1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Partly
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? Yes
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? No
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? No
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? No
  • Other Comments:

    The article addresses an important dental public health issue and is very relevant to the current oral health scenario. The article explores an important aspect of public health dentistry and there are no articles published in the scientific literature that address the issue from that particular geographic area. The article also has definite policy implications for school oral health related issues. The reviewer has suggested a few changes to enhance the overall presentation of the creditable and commendable research work.

     

    TITLE:

    • School teachers can be specified as being primary, middle or high school teachers

    ABSTRACT:

    • Authors can indicate overall mean knowledge score of study subjects and then knowledge scores for specific diseases.
    • Results of age wise and gender wise analysis will have to be included in results section along with p-values (they have been directly addressed in the conclusions section of abstract).
    • Correlation analysis has to be included in results section to fulfill the second aim of the study.
    • Higher knowledge scores among teachers in unaided schools might be an important conclusion.
    • Authors can consider including the key word “Indian context”.

    INTRODUCTION:

    • Regarding the sentence “Previous studies have indicated that teachers’ knowledge about oral health and current methods of prevention were inadequate and was inaccurate in some instances4”, authors can mention that this study was conducted among school teachers in Saudi Arabia.
    • Introduction can explicitly state that there is a paucity of information about school teachers’ knowledge about prevention of oral disease in this specific geographical area.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS:

    • Consider modifying the first sentence of materials and methods section into two sentences: “The present study was of Cross-sectional design, using structured self-administered questionnaires, conducted to assess the knowledge about prevention of common oral diseases among school teachers in Dharwad city and in order to assess the relationship of knowledge about prevention of common oral diseases with the socio-demographic variables.”
    • Under the sub-heading of “Study area and description of the population”, there might not be a need to repeat “The present study was a questionnaire based study”
    • Under the subheading “Sampling Procedure” authors mention “A list of total schools was obtained from the Block Education Officer (BEO) of Dharwad City and 215 school teachers were selected by Stratified systematic sampling.”
      • Authors can indicate how many schools were randomly chosen in the materials and methods section (it is mentioned in results section, but not in materials and methods section) and how many school teachers were randomly chosen from each school.
      • Authors need to mention how the sampling procedure was “Stratified systematic sampling”. Was stratification done based on the schools being unaided, aided and government? Or was stratification done based on age and gender of respondents?
    • Regarding the questionnaire, if the first four questions out of 26 were related to socio-demographic factors, the questionnaire will consist of 22 questions. Information about socio-demographic factors will not be included as a part of the questionnaire.
    • Authors can also include a brief description of the questionnaire in materials and methods section regarding what questions were included in it about specific oral diseases. Authors have mentioned about these questions in results section. The same can be included briefly in materials and methods section.
    • Reliability statistics is usually not reported in percentages. The authors write under the subheading of the pilot study “It was shown to have a Validity of 0 0.8469%& Split half reliability of 0.7173.”
    • The authors have mentioned “Validity of 0 0.8469%.....”. Do the authors mean Crohnbach’s alpha?

    RESULTS:

    • Generally, the authors will have to all numbers above 10 in numbers and all numbers below 10 in words. For instance, the first sentence in results section the authors write “The questionnaire was distributed to 215 study subjects and there was a response rate of 95.34% (n=205).” Later, in the same paragraph of results section the authors write “These schools chosen had seventy six and sixty seven school teachers respectively thus making up the total sample size of two hundred and fifteen school teachers.” Uniform pattern of writing the numbers will have to be maintained throughout the entire manuscript by the authors.  
    • Usually, results are reported for two decimal points. In other instances in the manuscript, the authors report results in two decimal points. In the first sentence of second paragraph of results section, authors write “The school teachers had a mean age of 40.175 with 69% of them being between the ages of 31-40.” The reliability statistics is reported in four decimal points. The authors write under the subheading of pilot study “It was shown to have a Validity of 0 0.8469%& Split half reliability of 0.7173.” Uniform pattern of number of digits in decimals will have to be maintained throughout the entire manuscript by the authors.   
    • Authors can include the full forms of “B Ed, BA” when it appears for the first time in the manuscript. Abbreviations can be used when mentioning these terms later.
    • To fulfill the second aim of the authors, i.e., “to assess the relationship of knowledge about prevention of common oral diseases with the socio-demographic variables”, authors can employ correlation tests like Chi-square test in their results section.

    DISCUSSION:

    • Authors can convert the following section in discussion into 2-3 sentences: “The knowledge regarding the possible role of spicy food as a risk factor in causing oral cancer was low this is in accordance with a study conducted by Sinha R11, et al who in their article said that very little is known, about the role of the Indian diet in causation of cancer or its role, if any, in prevention of cancer, and that from a public health perspective, there is an increasing need to develop cancer prevention programs responsive to the unique diets and cultural practices of the people of India.”
    • While referring to previous studies in discussion section, usually only the second name of the author/s without their initials will be mentioned. Authors will have to change the following in discussion section: Goel P, et al5, Marcia Boyer8, Mohammed Al Bokhamseen, Arzu Yorgancioglu10,  Sinha R11, et al and Emmanuel12 et al.

    REFERENCES:

    • The authors can follow a uniform pattern for their articles quoted in references. 
  • Competing interests:
    None
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    None

  • How to cite:  Rajesh G .Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India[Review of the article 'Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India ' by B J].WebmedCentral 2011;2(12):WMCRW001203
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1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Partly
3 Is this a new and original contribution? No
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? No
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? No
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? No
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    Dear AUTHOR,

    I would like comment on few aspects of this study.

    1.In the tittle it was mentioned about "Factors".But later it is not clear.

    2.Objectives and results are not matching

    3.Statistical test applied was not correct.This is qualitative data,we cannot apply ANOVA.

     

     

  • Competing interests:
    no
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Four  years of experience,17 journal publications

  • How to cite:  Shenoy R .Factors affecting the knowledge on prevention of oral diseases among school teachers of Dharwad City,A survey from India[Review of the article 'Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India ' by B J].WebmedCentral 2011;2(11):WMCRW001181
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1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Yes
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Yes
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    quite satisfactory 

  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    Yes
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    Yes
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    experience since 3 years and have publicatios in 2 international jouranls as first author 

     

  • How to cite:  Kalyanpur R .Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India[Review of the article 'Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India ' by B J].WebmedCentral 2011;2(5):WMCRW00780
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1 Is the subject of the article within the scope of the subject category? Yes
2 Are the interpretations / conclusions sound and justified by the data? Yes
3 Is this a new and original contribution? Yes
4 Does this paper exemplify an awareness of other research on the topic? Yes
5 Are structure and length satisfactory? Yes
6 Can you suggest brief additions or amendments or an introductory statement that will increase the value of this paper for an international audience? No
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? No
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? Yes
9 Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable? Yes
10 Are the references adequate and are they all necessary? Yes
11 Are the keywords and abstract or summary informative? Yes
  • Other Comments:

    An interesting study which can be generalized. 

  • Competing interests:
    An interesting study
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Not much

  • How to cite:  Battepati P .Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India[Review of the article 'Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India ' by B J].WebmedCentral 2011;2(4):WMCRW00658
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Untitled
Posted by Dr. Mostafa I Mostafa on 21 Mar 2011 01:19:43 PM GMT

  • Other Comments:

    •I would like to thank authors for the great effort for such studies.
    •Regarding international publication, this type of studies which mainly depends on culture, education and social hobbits is preferable to be published in national journals.
    •List of abbreviation section should be added. Many abbreviations are not clear as TCH, BA, Bed……etc.
    •Regarding the criteria of teachers selection and categorization. The teacher subject was not considered. In my opinion, the biology teacher knowledge differs than that for history teacher and so on.
    • Tables should be mentioned in the main text. Table 1 is the only mentioned table.
    •All tables need reformatting according standard requirements , as example: presence of both vertical and horizontal lines, absence of table footer regarding statistics, extreme left alignment of text, presence of one header for 2 tables,……….etc.

  • Competing interests:
    None
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    No
  • References:
    None
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    None

  • How to cite:  Mostafa M I.Untitled[Review of the article 'Factors Affecting The Knowledge On Prevention Of Oral Diseases Among School Teachers Of Dharwad City, A Survey From India ' by B J].WebmedCentral 2011;2(3):WMCRW00609
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