Insights into Agricultural Machine Injuries in Pakistan: An Orthopedic Surgeons Survey (2022–2023)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editor and Auhors,

The suggestions can be seen in the marked file.

Sincerely Yours.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We truly appreciate your constructive feedback and have updated our manuscript based on your feedback. We have created a table to document all the changes we have made based on each comment you provided us to facilitate the review process. We use track changes in the document as well. We really thank you for your feedback, implementing these changes has strengthened the paper and highlighted the importance of this study.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript proposes an interesting study regarding the safety related to agricultural machinery focusing on the situation among Pakistan farmers by means of a survey.

This topic is in line with the journal issues and can be of interest to the journal’s target audience.

However, the manuscript presents several criticalities that need to be addressed before considering it for publication.

First, in the introduction, research motivations are unclear and need to be elaborated more starting from the analysis of the current situation related to agricultural machinery safety and the related accidents. With this goal in mind, the Authors have to expand the background analysis in the field in order to portray a more exhaustive and coherent framework: some suggestions can be found in recent studies such as https://doi.org/10.3390/agronomy12071694, https://doi.org/10.3390/safety6010001.

Another major criticality is related to the materials and methods section, where the procedure used to carry out the survey has to be explained in more detail. In particular,  the following issues need to be explained:

-          How was structured the questionnaire and which criteria were used to build it: a sample could be reported.

-          Additional information on the sample size of the interviewed surgeons has to be provided.

-          How data provided by the respondents were filtered: for example, in many countries the official rate of accidents occurring in agriculture is always partial since it includes only professional workers employed in this sector, while non-professional farmers (i.e. the so-called hobbyists) can be hardly traced although their number is quite significant.

-          The Census data are related to 2010: is it reliable to use them in 2024?

Additional information about the software used to elaborate data has to be provided as well.

Regarding results, the Authors declare a certain percentage of correlation, but they did not describe how this value was obtained.

The analysis of results (section 3) is satisfactory, while their discussion is quite poor.

The Authors need to expand this section to better highlight the research implications and major findings taking into account the extant literature.

In general, the strengths of the manuscript are related to the analysis of agricultural accidents related to the use of machinery, which can expand knowledge in this critical field.

The weaknesses are related to the lack of a scientifically sound approach: i.e. consistent research motivations and methodology.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments. You have given us a detailed review that allowed to self-reflect on what we aim to achieve with our paper. Your insights were very useful and appreciate further comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A summary (one short paragraph) outlining the aim of the paper, its main contributions, and strengths.

1.      Collecting questionnaires from surgeons, the study aims to describe the occurrence of work injuries in farmers from Pakistan. However, out of 200 surgeons, only 55 completed the survey. The striking differences among areas of the country could be due to the corresponding number of surgeons: the fewer the latter, the fewer the injuries.

 

General concept comments

2.      Authors cited several papers in Introduction reporting high incidence of farming injuries, particularly fodder cutter injuries, in Pakistan and other developing countries. The lack of conflicting findings did not require another descriptive study.

3.      A study carried out in north India and published about 20 years ago (please see citation “20” in line 33 of the manuscript) reported cost effective design changes resulting in safer fodder-cutter machines. It would be interesting to investigate whether prevention could explain the seemingly lower injury rates detected in some areas of Pakistan.

 

 

Highlighting areas of weakness, the testability of the hypothesis, methodological inaccuracies, missing controls, etc.

Please see the above points 1 to 3.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is moderate.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Short introduction, the state of the art in term of studies and the used methods and material missed. Could be extended, see publication of Kogler et al.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e1d2/fceeb9228f24bb5d506e7a120cb8ec62f449.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925753514002367

The figures must be improved, overinformation must be avoided.

Further, it is important to identify the causes and circumstances of accidents to point out the most effective measures to avoid them in the future. This should be done by the TOP Principle: Improving firstly technique, if it is not sufficient then organization and if this is no enough than personal protection equipment and training must be used for avoiding this accidents

 This information is needed by politic to do the right actions.

Englisch must be improved.

Further comments in jellow boxes of the PDF.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

English must be improved by a lector.

Author Response

We truly appreciate your constructive feedback and have updated our manuscript based on your feedback. We have created a table to document all the changes we have made based on each comment you provided us to facilitate the review process. We use track changes in the document as well. We really thank you for your feedback, implementing these changes has strengthened the paper and highlighted the importance of this study.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The focus of this manuscript is important work that adds to the literature.  However, the framing of this work needs to be redone to bring the results and conclusions into alignment with the data that was collected. The types of agricultural injuries in Pakistan is an important contribution. The descriptive information should be the focus the this study. The attempt to create injury rates is flawed and hides the value of the data collected. The number and distribution of responses is a limitation that the authors need to accept and keep the results and discussion in alignment with the data. Based on the data collected, any general findings related to injury rates and attempting to generalize injury categories is an overreach that cannot be supported by the data collected. This creates a false narrative for the reader. There is publishable data here - but the authors need to scale back and focus on what they have rather than trying to make this data into something else.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your comments.  We really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comments. As you probably could see in reviewing the revision we have expanded the discussion part a lot to take into account feedback we have received from other reviewers. We have tried to go back through our article and assess where do over-reach in either our result or discussion sections and how can we update it to increase the quality of this paper and meet the requirements of our previous reviewers. We hope you are satisfied with the revisions and if there is a place we need to make further edits please let us know.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The revised version was investigated. It is seen that the revisions was done on it. The manuscript can be accepted.

Sincerely Yours.

Author Response

Thank you for the acceptance.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The Authors have satisfactorily revised the manuscript. Hence, it can be considered for publication

Author Response

Thank you for the acceptance.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments are in the note boxes, there are still some typing errors, should be removed. Statistical analytical results still missing.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Author Response

We truly appreciate your feedback and have updated our manuscript based on your feedback. We have created a table to document all the changes we have made based on each comment you provided us to facilitate the review process. We use track changes in the document as well. We really thank you for your continued feedback, we have went through this paper very carefully and adjusted and improved it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for addressing the concerns raised in the first round of review.

Author Response

Thank you for accepting. I really appreciate it.

Round 3

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Add unter 5. propose safety optimisation to manufactures or advising them in machine related safety optimisation

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We truly appreciate your feedback and have updated our manuscript based on your feedback. We have created a table to document all the changes we have made based on each comment you provided us to facilitate the review process. We use track changes in the document as well. We really thank you for your continued feedback, we have went through this paper very carefully and adjusted and improved it.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 4

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for improving, it was worth, it is ok now.

Author Response

Thank you for providing an opportunity to revise the manuscript.