The Effect of Antiopioid State Laws on Prescribing Patterns in an Oculoplastic Practice
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper, Afkhamnejad et al. attempted to investigate whether Texas House Bills 2174 and 3284 have influenced opioid prescription practices among ophthalmologists performing oculoplastic and orbital trauma surgeries at the UTMB. Retrospective studies like the current study will help bring cognizance of opioid prescribing behavior among oculoplastic surgeons and identify areas of improvement to lower opioid prescriptions. The study is fairly straightforward, and the interpretation is consistent with the findings. However, there are some questions and concerns about this study. As there have been similar studies done previously, the authors should cite previous studies and include in the ‘Discussion’ section how this study is different from other studies. The authors should not just discuss how the current work differs from the previous reports, but also highlight the novelty and improvement made in their study. The sample size is small, especially for making statistical comparisons between different oculoplastic procedures. Increasing the sample size would have further strengthened the study findings. Figures 1 and 2 communicate the same finding. The authors should remove Figure 2 or show it as supplementary information.
Some Typos and grammatical errors-
Line 11. However, the affects of >> effects
Line 31. differences with regards>> regard
Line 62. before writing a prescription for any opioid containing>> prescribing
Line 112. Measurements were based off the amount>> on
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
Congratulations on choosing such theme which directly helps the struggle against opioid abuse in the US. Nonetheless, I have some important considerations to make.
- Concerning the abstract, its is excessively long and, even so, lacks essencial information. An example is that information was available from a single practitioner. Your total word count is of 590 words when Journal of Clinical and Translational Ophthalmology demands a maximum of 200 words. Therefore, your abstract should be cut to one third of its size and headings removed.
- Keywords should also be included. I suggest reading thoroughly through the instructions to authors to make the required changes to your submitted article.
- Line 79: what does ENT stand for?
- Line 97: what is your goal in stating the actual codes of the procedures? Consider removing if unnecessary to the reader.
- Line 137: Avoid stating that you “almost reached statistical significance” when 0.09 is almost twice as much as 0.05.
- Table 1: Remove at least two decimal houses from the P-value, no need for such precision.
- Figure 1: lacks scale on the axis.
- Consider including in the discussion that the aim of these anti-opioid laws is to reduce the unnecessary prescription and consequent abuse of opioids. If post-operative analgesia is considered to be an adequate use of such drugs, would you expect there to be a reduction in prescription considering there was no abuse to begin with?
- The paragraph starting on line 169 contains information which should be on the results and methodology, not on the discussion.
- Line 180: Opioids are not the only option for post-op analgesia, so clarify your sentence. It is also important to include a reference to this sentence, showing to whom you are comparing your department to. In the USA, opioid prescription is much higher than in other countries, so “less than half” could be a high rate of opioid elsewhere.
- Line 195: remove last sentence from the paragraph. Repetitive with your conclusion.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
On your reply to my report, you stated that the abstract was shortened (up to 200 words) and subheadings removed, as previously suggested by myself. Nonetheless, I have received a version of your manuscript with a long abstract of 592 words, with subheadings and multiple paragraphs. Abstract also lacks the information that your study analyses the prescription of one single ophthalmologist. Nonetheless, several changes suggested by myself have been included in this version, therefore I am confused.
Considering the suggested corrections to the abstract have not been made, I will copy the authors' intructions to this journal: "The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings."
Author Response
Here's the updated abstract.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 2 Report
I have no further comments that need to be revised.
Author Response
Thank you
