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Dear Dr. Haq and colleagues:
Thanks for revising your manuscript based on the concerns raised by the reviewers. I now believe that your manuscript is suitable for publication. Congratulations! I look forward to seeing this work in print, and I anticipate it being an important resource for groups studying domestic violence and happiness of women in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks again for choosing PeerJ to publish such important work.
Best,
-joe
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Bob Patton, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Dear Dr. Haq and colleagues:
Thanks for revising your manuscript. The reviewer is very satisfied with your revision (as am I). Great! However, there are a few minor edits to make. Please address these ASAP so we may move towards acceptance of your work.
Best,
-joe
Reporting has been improved significantly.
Authors have made efforts to improve the readability of research design.
Authors have made efforts to clarify their findings.
The authors addressed most of my comments, but I have a few more minor comments.
1. Variables that measured using Likert scales should be presented in the descriptive table as well.
2. Authors combined results and discussion sections in this revision; however, authors should not do this. The authors should have a separate results section and could combine discussion and conclusions.
3. For the abstract, authors only have backgrounds, methods, and results three sections; however, your main text has four sections (intro, methods, results, discussion and conclusion), you should make changes accordingly. I encourage you to have a discussion subheading in the abstract.
4. Since your other research question was about women’s happiness, your title should reflect that you have examined violence against women and women’s happiness during COVID-19.
5. Authors said, “and for mothers is graduation.” Could you please clarify this?
Dear Dr. Haq and colleagues:
Thanks for submitting your manuscript to PeerJ. I have now received three independent reviews of your work, and as you will see, the reviewers raised some concerns about the research. Despite this, these reviewers are optimistic about your work and the potential impact it will lend to research studying the microbiome dynamics of Planorbella trivolvis. Thus, I encourage you to revise your manuscript, accordingly, taking into account all of the concerns raised by the reviewers.
Importantly, please ensure that an English expert has edited your revised manuscript for content and clarity. Please also ensure that your figures and tables contain all of the information that is necessary to support your findings and observations. The Methods should be clear, concise and repeatable. Please ensure this. Please address all of the typos. Citation formats vary widely and need to be uniform.
Please justify your rationale for specific methodologies implemented in your study. Major concerns were raised over this, and your rebuttal should address these issues.
For instance, there is an unnecessary focus on the quantitative methods used in this paper, this is distracting and reads like a methodology paper. Please restructure your manuscript based on this issue.
Overall, the quality of the writing is poor and your manuscript should be improved to present the study’s question, framework and outcomes in a more clear and cohesive manner.
There are many minor problems pointed out by the reviewers, and you will need to address all of these and expect a thorough review of your revised manuscript by these same reviewers.
I agree with the concerns of the reviewers, and thus feel that their suggestions should be adequately addressed before moving forward. Therefore, I am recommending that you revise your manuscript, accordingly, taking into account all of the issues raised by the reviewers.
I look forward to seeing your revision, and thanks again for submitting your work to PeerJ.
Good luck with your revision,
-joe
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
[# PeerJ Staff Note: The Academic Editor has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at copyediting@peerj.com for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title) #]
This manuscript was well-written and no comment on this part.
Research design, data analyses, and data report were very clear.
No significant issue in this part.
Thank you for the opportunity to review such an interesting study. This manuscript is very well-written, data analyses were very solid, and results of this study will contribute to the literature. I enjoyed reading this paper.
1. Line 56, some edits are needed.
2. Authors mentioned, “we observe from the data that very 295 insignificant number of women reported such violence (including physical, emotional and verbal) before lockdown.” I wonder why authors did not control for this variable, and how this could affect their safety during COVID. The authors should try.
3. The authors should present all the variables included in regression models in the descriptive table.
4. Table 3: Income adequacy. The base category should be “strongly agree” instead of “agree.”
5. How many women had zero violence during COVID-19? It would be helpful to note the number of zero cases in Table 3 for the zero model.
6. Examining safety would be interesting enough for this paper, but the authors further examined factors associated with happiness. Since authors further examined factors associated with happiness, a stronger link between safety and happiness should be made, such as why subjective happiness was linked to exposure to violence. I can see some connections here, but it should be elaborated better using some empirical evidence or theoretical perspectives regarding the relationships between these two variables.
7. Also, authors should compare significant results from violence as a DV and subjective happiness as a DV.
8. Implications for preventing domestic violence for women should be further discussed.
The authors clearly make a case for their work, using clear, technically correct writing, anchored to topical literature references. I will defer to a copyeditor for grammatical and syntax corrections. Several statements need completion, rephrasing, or grammatical edits for clarity. Citation formats vary widely. The authors should confer with Peer J on a specified citation format.
The article does not include enough citation - particularly in the background and discussion sections. Several COVID + DV papers are now in publication and can serve to reinforce literature references. If anything, citations here are scant, while not a central issue, additional citations will help contextualize this study by way of comparing/contrasting it with current reports on spikes in domestic violence across in the world - what is now described as a 'shadow pandemic'.
The authors should elucidate on their human subjects protection protocol, COVID has made it precarious to do DV research with women in lockdown. The authors should state what steps were taken to guarantee safe and confidential data gathering (though online) during this time.
It is not clear if one survey instrument captured all outcomes (demographic, economic, socioeconomic, and psychological aspects of married women). On the other hand, it is clear they used a survey by Chinn (2014) to measure overall happiness. The authors should explain what surveys were used, and also define psychometric (reliability and validity) measures for all distinct outcomes instruments used.
The authors mentioned surveys were completed online ("we fielded the survey in the first three weeks of June 2020"), how were participants recruited? What online tools were used? Were participants compensated? This information is pertinent to the literature and should be included in the methods section.
The authors should clarify what this method is - "iterative BFGS method." Other acronyms should be clarified in their first use.
It is clear there is a substantial emphasis on data analysis methods used, while important for a methodological paper, this hyperfocus on quantitative methods makes it laborious to read portions of this paper. It does not serve the reader to know that "There exist several discrete distributions to model count data such as Poisson, Negative Binomial, zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) and zero-inflated Negative Binomial (ZINB) distribution." Among other things, all the statistical models are distracting. Consider keeping only information relevant to this paper.
The authors state: "Although, the generalizability of our research remains intact for those who cannot use technology or perhaps more domesticated women but even if there is a limit to generalizability we are more interested here to identify the issue of violence and happiness for the particular groups of women who are able to use the technology to fill up the survey. " There are various reasons why women with digital access will be different from women without this access. Thus, the generalizability of findings is in question, given known gender parities with technology access. The authors should consider this a limitation of their data and contextualize their findings as such.
Contradictory finding - the authors should clarify "Unemployed women and women who are not working have higher odds of zero violence as compared to the working woman. These women also had higher odds of facing violence which means that these unemployed and not working women are a vulnerable group"
Results - Findings on anxiety are scattered about the document - the same can be said for empowerment and some other variables under review. The authors should put findings in the same place - under the same header or paragraph to improve readability. For example, it will help if the authors collate the same outcomes under similar topic headers to explain variables. For example, explain demographic, economic, socioeconomic, and psychological variables under Partner Violence dynamics and again under Overall Happiness metrics.
There are several notable strengths of this manuscript. The authors use a zero-inflated negative binomial model to compare the impact of family settings, type of relationships, and age on positive counts of violence during the lockdown; as well as across several crucial metrics as they concern current domestic violence in Pakistan. They also establish determinants of overall happiness - an important and overlooked issue - related to COVID and domestic violence contexts based on demographic, economic, socioeconomic, and psychological attributes of married women in Pakistan. If the aforementioned critiques and commendations are carefully considered, this paper will make an important contribution to the literature at this time.
In this review, the authors examined the psychological well-being of women and the factors associated with their well-being in Pakistan during the pandemic. The authors provide a strong literature background. This article is well structure. The authors well addressed the research questions in the manuscript. There are several grammar errors in the manuscript. The authors may need to edit it.
The demographic table presents detailed information on the sample recruited in this study. It may be clearer to combine the minimum and maximum into “range” in the table 1. In addition, it is not clear about the variables: “father’s years of schooling” and “mother’s years of schooling”. Authors need to give more definition in the manuscript.
no comment
The findings were important for clinical practitioners to better serve local communities. Also, it is crucial for policymakers to make relevant police that women stay safe and happy at home during this challenging time.
The authors may need to more discuss how the findings are implemented in the field.
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