Submited on: 31 Mar 2011 03:36:45 PM GMT
Published on: 31 Mar 2011 06:51:16 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? No
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? Yes
7 Can you suggest any reductions in the paper, or deletions of parts? Yes
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? No
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 study addresses an important area of public health dentistry in Nepal. There is a definite paucity of information about oral health knowledge, attitude and behavior among individuals in Nepal. Besides, it targets an important age group that is vulnerable to oral diseases, school children aged 13-18 yrs. The reviewer indicates few areas which would enhance the overall value of the manuscript.  

    Overall, there are many syntax errors in the manuscript. The authors can get their manuscript revised by any individual whose first language is English or who is proficient in English language.

    ABSTRACT:

    • Authors are requested to read the instructions to authors section of WebmedCentral regarding the structured abstracts for original articles. Most abstracts are structured under the following four subheadings - Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions. The authors are required to re-write their abstract under these headings.
    • More specifically, under the heading “Study Design” in the abstract, authors can not include the entire methods section. “Study Design” will be Cross-sectional questionnaire based survey.
    • Authors mention that “Data on oral health knowledge, attitudes and practice was collected by means of 30 self-administered close ended questionnaires.” The information provided in methods and methodology section implies that the questionnaire employed contained 30 questions in it. Authors need to make appropriate corrections in both abstract and methods and methodology section.
    • Authors have only presented descriptive results of a questionnaire based study. Results should include mean knowledge, attitude and practice scores of study subjects. Results should also present any sub-group analysis in terms of age wise, gender wise differences in mean knowledge, attitude and behavior scores. Authors can consider presenting relationship of other important socio-demographic variables with knowledge, attitude and behavior scores of respondents.
    • One cannot arrive at the conclusion that “oral health related KAP among the secondary school level students of rural Nepal is poor” based only on percentage distribution of respondents’ answers to individual questions. Looking at mean KAP scores might be helpful in arriving at the conclusion that the authors have presented.
    • One cannot suggest that “……secondary level students would be that appropriate target group to receive the first organized intervention leading towards improving the periodontal health status…..” In the present era of primary and primordial prevention, decision makers and policy makers would not want to wait till the age of 13-18 yrs (the age group of study subjects in the present study) to initiate preventive measures.
    • The authors can consider “Nepalese context/scenario” and “questionnaire survey” for keywords.

    INTRODUCTION:

    • In the format of the manuscript that the reviewer has received, there are question marks in the text material in places that cannot be considered as being appropriate. This might be due to some technical error or might be due typographical errors. This needs to be rectified to make the manuscript more readable. For instance, after the very first sentence in the introduction section, there is a question mark. “Oral disease qualifies as major public health problems owing to their higher prevalence and significant social impact1. ?”
    • Almost all the in-text references do not appear in the form of superscript. If the authors are not presenting in-text references in the form of superscript, they can present the reference numbers in parenthesis (brackets). This might be due to some technical errors or typographical errors, but clarity of the manuscript gets considerably diminished due to this. This need to be addressed by the authors.
    • The need for the study needs to be more strongly justified. Authors can state that there is a paucity of information on this particular research topic from Nepal.
    • The authors quote article 4, which reports a “National Oral Health Path Finder Survey” conducted in Nepal in 2004. Authors mention: “It has been shown that Nepali children have low level of oral health awareness and practice as compared to their western counterparts4.” Which particular age group they are referring to from this 2004 “National Oral Health Path Finder Survey” in their introduction section.

    METHODS AND METHODOLOGY:

    • Authors need to specify details about sample size determination.
    • What was the criteria employed for selection of these schools? Were they randomly chosen or was convenience sampling employed? This also raises issues about generalizability of the study.
    • Was ethical clearance obtained for the present study by institutional ethics committee?
    • Authors need to correct the sentence about questionnaire containing 30 questions instead of mentioning as “30 self-administered close ended questionnaires…”
    • Have the authors determined the reliability and validity of the questionnaire use? Authors need to present Crohnbach’s alpha and split-half reliability values for the questionnaire.
    • Authors mention that they have adopted the questionnaire from Yee et al and Al-Omiri et al. Which aspects of these questionnaires were retained and which were modified? What were the reasons for either retaining or modifiying questions from these questionnaires?
    • When authors administer questionnaire in two languages, how did the authors develop same questionnaire in two languages? Translation and back translation procedure employing two professionally qualified translators will have to be followed to develop same questionnaire in two languages. Was this procedure followed?
    • Authors mention they have assessed “fear from dental treatment” under attitude of the study subjects. Fear and attitude may to totally different constructs. Including fear under attitude might have questionable validity.
    • Authors also mention including “feelings regarding the treatment, thoughts about involvement in the dental treatment” under attitude of the respondents. “Feelings” and “thoughts” might not be the same as attitude and this again leads to questions regarding validity of the questionnaire.

    RESULTS:

    • The entire results section has been presented in one long single paragraph. The authors can consider presenting the results in the form of paragraphs.
    • Generally, one does not start a sentence with numbers. Authors have started many sentences with numbers: first sentence in results section: “40% of the study sample brushes their teeth at least twice daily while 60% reported irregular tooth brushing”; “32% of the respondents took at least 2-3 minutes to brush….”  etc.
    • Only descriptive findings from individual questions have been presented. Authors can consider presenting mean knowledge scores, mean attitude scores and mean behavior scores.
    • Authors can consider performing subgroup analysis in the form of age wise, gender wise differences of KAP scores. Authors can consider including other socio-demographic factors that influence KAP of study subjects under the results section. Correlation analysis of these socio-demographic factors will be more informative to the readers. This will add a lot to the overall value of the manuscript.

    DISCUSSION:

    • The entire discussion section is in the form of a long single paragraph. The authors need to present the discussion section in paragraphs.
    • Authors write “This is a small scale single descriptive cross-sectional study with 100 respondents selected through cluster sampling using….” Consider deleting the phrase “small scale” from this sentence.
    • Consider shifting the information related to religion, age of the respondents, occupation of their parents to results section.

    CONCLUSION:

    • As has been mentioned by the reviewer earlier, authors’ conclusion that this age group might be suitable for their first oral health intervention is questionable. One has to consider intervening with oral disease process much earlier.
    • Consider shifting the last sentence of conclusion section to discussion: “However, the efficacy of such education will be limited if health programs do not directly impinge on attitudes, and take into account factors related to the environment, education, social status and economic level of targeted population.”

    REFERENCES:

    • The authors can consider increasing the number of 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 .Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study [Review of the article 'Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study ' by Humagain M].WebmedCentral 2011;2(12):WMCRW001213
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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? No
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? 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? Yes
8 Is the quality of the diction satisfactory? No
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:

    Dear author,

    I would like to put following suggestions.

    There are many syntax errors.

    sample size is not calculated.

    Mean and standard deviation cannot be calculated for this type of data.

    The results are not summarized according to the objectives. There is no clear differentiation  between  knowledge, attitude and practices.

    All the references are not in superscript.

    According to table on " Treatment done during last visit  ",patient has undergone only one treatment.but practically it is not true.

  • Competing interests:
    no
  • Invited by the author to review this article? :
    No
  • Have you previously published on this or a similar topic?:
    Yes
  • References:
    1. Pai V, Sequeira PS, Rao A, M.Kundabala.“Dental awareness among Kannada and English Medium Primary School teachers in Mangalore City.” J of Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry,issue 7; 2006:7-12. 2. Pai V, Sequeira PS, Rao A, Jain A, M.Kundabala. “A study on awareness of post-exposure prophylaxis guidelines against occupational exposure to HIV among dentists in Mangalore City.” JPFA, 2006; 20 (September): 86-91. 3.Pai V, M.Kundabala, Sequeira PS, Rao A. Inverted and Impacted maxillary and mandibular third molars – A Very Rare Case. J Oral Health Com Dent 2008;2(1):8-9. 4.Shenoy R, Kini R, Rao A. Remedies for medical negligence. J of Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry 2008;issue 11: 30-32 5.Parolia A,Kundabala M, Shenoy R. Reconstruction of Gingival Topography by an Innovative Method.The Journal of The Indian Academy of Aesthetic & Cosmetic Dentistry,2009;Vol 6(March):37-39. 6.Shenoy R, Sequira PS, Rao A, Pai D.Dental caries experience of pre-school children in Mangalore,India. Journal of Nepal Dental Association2009;Vol 10 (1):25-30. 7.Shenoy R, Ravuri K, Harshavardhan A, Rajalaxmi S,Acharya S,Sadual SK. Be Aware or Beware ? Awareness of COPRA. J of Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry 2009;issue 13: 25-29 8. Arathi R, Ashwini R, Ramya S: “Mineral Trioxide Aggregate – A review” Journal of Clinical Pediatric Journal Vol 34 (3) 1-8, 2009 9. Shenoy Ramya, Rao A, Rao A, Mathew S.“A study on awareness of post-exposure prophylaxis guidelines against occupational exposure to HIV among non-teaching staff in Mangalore City.” J of Indian Association of Public Health Dentistry,issue 14; 2009:7-12. 11.Manjrekar Poornima A , Shenoy R ,et al; “Diabetes Scenario with Respect to HbA1c and Microalbuminuria”. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research. 2010 June ;(4):2489-2494 12. Anupama Hegde, Ramya Shenoy, Prajwal D’Mello, Smitha A, Tintu A, Poornima Manjrekar. “Alternative markers of glycemic status in diabetes mellitus”. Biomedical Research 2010; 21 (3): 252-256 13.Shetty K,Parolia A,Mohan M,Kundabala M,Shenoy R.Comparison of Perceptions between Dental Students and Teachers regarding Teaching Methodologies in Dental School in Manipal University.Manipal Odontoscope;Vol.2(1):2010. 14.Thomas MS, Shetty N, Parolia A, Kundabala K, Shenoy R.Prevalence of post operative pain with respect to tooth vitality and pre-operative pain in patients undergoing conventional root canal treatment: a prospective study.ENDO (Lond Endl) 2010;4(1):61-67. 15.Malhotra N,Shenoy R,Acharya S,Shenoy R,Mayya S.Effect of three indigenous food stains on Resin-Based,Microhybrid-and Nanocomposites.Journal of Esthetic and Restorative Dentistry 2011;23(4):250-257. 16. Abhishek Parolia, Kundabala M, Vaibhav Gupta, Mudita Verma, Chandni Batra, Ramya Shenoy, Srikant N. Microleakage of bonded amalgam restorations using different adhesive agents with dye under vacuum: An in vitro study. Indian Journal of Dental Research 2011; 22(2):252-255. 17.BS Subrabha,Rao A,Choudhary S,Shenoy R.child dental fear and behavior : the role of environtmental factors in hospital factor.J of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry 2011 ; Vol 2( 2): 95-101.
  • Experience and credentials in the specific area of science:

    Reader, with four years of experience in Public Health Dentistry.

  • How to cite:  Shenoy R .Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study[Review of the article 'Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study ' by Humagain M].WebmedCentral 2011;2(12):WMCRW001209
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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:

    Good study.It could of great value if the Questionnaire could be given again to those subjects after making them aware of oral hygine by the means of some community based brogrammes. 

  • Competing interests:
    Nil
  • 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:

    3 years of teaching experience in the Department of Oral medidine and Radiology in AB Shetty Memorial institute of dental sciences, Mangalore. 3 years of general dental practice.

  • How to cite:  Shetty S .Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study [Review of the article 'Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) About Oral Health Among Secondary Level Students of Rural Nepal - A Questionnaire Study ' by Humagain M].WebmedCentral 2011;2(4):WMCRW00656
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