Association of Formal and Informal Social Support With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Chinese Rural Elders
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1. The manuscript assesses health-related quality of life from a secondary analysis of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study.
2. Line 13: please include the range of the responses for the EQ-5D questionnaire (0–1)?
3. Line 41: please clarify... aging before getting rich...
4. Line 46: consider Beginning the sentence with "Social support has become..."
5. Line 82: consider substituting "the support from institutions" with home and community-based services HCBS.
6. Line 86: rephrase the sentence "Finally, many researchers often use components of HRQOL as intermediary..."
7. Line 89: Consider the beginning the sentence as: The objective of this study is....
8. Line 95: spell out China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study CHARLS...
9. Line 101: is there and IRB exemption as a quality improvement study from a university, maybe Wuhan University?
10. Line 110: please include the range of the responses for the EQ-5D questionnaire (0–1)?
11. Tables 1-3, please define Z/H/rs in the text and in a table legend.
12. Line 234: please explain how the results are consistent with previous research.
13. Figure 1: Please define the units which measure Density in the text and in a table legend.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Title: it may be worth adding that the study focused on the formal and informal dimension of social support – it is only a suggestion.
Abstract: the volume of the abstract is consistent with the editorial standards. In accordance with editorial standards, the abstract should be a single paragraph and should not contain headings. The abstract should better reflect the content of the article (e.g. information about the tool for assessing social support is missing).
Introduction: lines 27-29: „As an important part of the research relevant to the population aging, the health-related quality 27 of life (HRQOL) is attracting more and more attention from domestic and foreign scholars in recent 28 years.” – give some references to confirm this statement, please. Lines 64-66 represent a partial repetition of lines 58-64. This section (lines 67-76) should be the most extensive – it is here the authors review the literature on the topic (current state of knowledge), and these are the most valuable information for the reader which are the basis for a discussion of the results. Line 77: „In addition, many studies focused on the relationship between social support and HRQOL.” – give some references to confirm this statement, please. The research hypothesis has not been clearly defined.
Materials and methods: for the HRQoL measurement the EQ-5D questionnaire was used, but from which version? According to the reviewer, it could have been the EQ-5D-3L version. Clarify it, please. Lines 127-128: why were only 2 types of social support considered (emotional and instrumental)? What about information and appraisal support? This section does not refer to any tool used to gather data on social support (there are many such tools, including standardized ones). Please describe how the necessary information on formal and informal support was collected? Was it an analysis of patient records, interviews, non-standardized questionnaires? This section in its current form is not acceptable.
Results: the title of table 1 is confusing (“Characteristics of participants (N = 4189)”) – the table also presents the results of correlation tests.
Discussion: the discussion should be based on the literature cited in the introduction, while the introduction should give theoretical grounds for discussion – now these are two rather loosely connected sections. The discussion is limited quantitatively and qualitatively. Only 9 bibliography items (33 in total) were cited in the discussion section, although the problem of HRQoL in the social suport context is so popular in the literature. Did the authors see any limitations of this study? This section in its current form is not acceptable.
Conclusions: according to the reviewer, only the first and the last statement are a true conclusion (lines 271-272 and 278-280). The rest of the „conclusions” are an informations, that should be placed in the discussion section.
References: bibliography has not been fully adapted to editorial standards – see "Instructions for Authors", please. Most of bibliography items are current – after 2010 (19 items). The problem raised by the authors is so popular in the literature that bibliography items should be more relevant and there should be more of them.
General comments: punctuation errors are present (in main text, tables and figure). It is necessary to standardize the markings used (e.g. LaRocc, Guidry JJ or Tao Yuchun). There are letter errors in the authors' last names in the text (e.g. LaRocc instead LaRocco).
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors referred to the reviewer's comments in an appropriate range - however, on certain issues it could have been done more accurately (e.g. methodological section and discussion). I decide to give this article a chance, hoping for a better manuscript in the future.
