Downloaded from http://bmjopen.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2017 - Published by group.bmj.com
PEER REVIEW HISTORY
BMJ Open publishes all reviews undertaken for accepted manuscripts. Reviewers are asked to
complete a checklist review form (http://bmjopen.bmj.com/site/about/resources/checklist.pdf) and
are provided with free text boxes to elaborate on their assessment. These free text comments are
reproduced below.
ARTICLE DETAILS
The accuracy of the general practitioner‟s sense of alarm when
confronted with dyspnoea and/or thoracic pain: protocol for a
prospective observational study
Barais, Marie; Barraine, Pierre; Scouarnec, Florie; Mauduit, AnneSophie; Le Floc'h, Bernard; Van Royen, Paul; Liétard, Claire;
Stolper, Erik
TITLE (PROVISIONAL)
AUTHORS
VERSION 1 - REVIEW
REVIEWER
Slawomir Czachowski
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Medical College, Family Doctor
Department, Torun, Poland
08-Nov-2014
REVIEW RETURNED
GENERAL COMMENTS
A minor objection to the article concerns the lack of specified upper
age limit for the participating patients. While the lower age limit of 18
is listed, this lack could pose a problem considering the fact that
patients over the age of 80 may not be a reliable source of data,
considering the overall high likelihood of their experiencing
dyspnoea and chest pains.
A second remark concerns the section titled “Limitations of the
existing literature”, which nevertheless does not seem to fully cover
said subject. A sentence or two could easily be added to the article,
clarifying the (mentioned elsewhere in the article) scarcity of data on
the subject and, therefore, the relevance of the proposed research.
REVIEWER
Dr Nigel Flook, Clinical Professor
University of Alberta, Canada
15-Jan-2015
REVIEW RETURNED
GENERAL COMMENTS
I believe there is value in seeing published results from a study
using this protocol as it was described. Alternatively, I am not able to
identify any value in publishing this manuscript since it is a
description of the protocol without results.
VERSION 1 – AUTHOR RESPONSE
Reviewers‟ Comments to Author
A minor objection to the article concerns the lack of specified upper age limit for the participating
patients. While the lower age limit of 18 is listed, this lack could pose a problem considering the fact
that patients over the age of 80 may not be a reliable source of data, considering the overall high
Downloaded from http://bmjopen.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2017 - Published by group.bmj.com
likelihood of their experiencing dyspnoea and chest pains.
Thank you for this comment. We added an upper age limit (till 80 years) in the description of the
participants.
A second remark concerns the section titled “Limitations of the existing literature”, which nevertheless
does not seem to fully cover said subject. A sentence or two could easily be added to the article,
clarifying the (mentioned elsewhere in the article) scarcity of data on the subject and, therefore, the
relevance of the proposed research.
We do agree with this comment. We added a sentence at the end of the paragraph of the section
„limitations of the existing literature” to insist on the lack of evidence on this subject.
“To our knowledge, data are scarce on the diagnostic accuracy of the sense of alarm in primary care,
especially for patients with complaints of dyspnoea and chest pain.”
I believe there is value in seeing published results from a study using this protocol as it was
described. Alternatively, I am not able to identify any value in publishing this manuscript since it is a
description of the protocol without results.
Thank you for this comment. We chose the study protocol section in order to inform about our study at
a very early stage and to stimulate discussion. We think it is worthwhile to publish this manuscript of
the protocol, since studies on the diagnostic accuracy of the sense of alarm are scarce and especially
when using newly developed instruments as the Gut Feelings Questionnaire. Publishing this protocol
could encourage other researchers to design similar studies in primary care and in other countries.
Besides writing this article in order to publish it was for us a constructive and challenging way to work
on the protocol.
Downloaded from http://bmjopen.bmj.com/ on June 17, 2017 - Published by group.bmj.com
The accuracy of the general practitioner's
sense of alarm when confronted with
dyspnoea and/or thoracic pain: protocol for a
prospective observational study
Marie Barais, Pierre Barraine, Florie Scouarnec, Anne Sophie Mauduit,
Bernard Le Floc'h, Paul Van Royen, Claire Liétard and Erik Stolper
BMJ Open 2015 5:
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006810
Updated information and services can be found at:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/3/e006810
These include:
References
This article cites 11 articles, 2 of which you can access for free at:
http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/3/e006810#BIBL
Open Access
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative
Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which
permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work
non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms,
provided the original work is properly cited and the use is
non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Email alerting
service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the
box at the top right corner of the online article.
Topic
Collections
Articles on similar topics can be found in the following collections
Cardiovascular medicine (749)
General practice / Family practice (629)
Notes
To request permissions go to:
http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions
To order reprints go to:
http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform
To subscribe to BMJ go to:
http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/