When the Challenges of Widowhood Extend to Childcare: Essential Considerations for Social Work Practice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is a qualitative research study on widows in the Binga district (zimbabwe). The article can be published after minor corrections.

In the introduction, the authors include the objectives of the study. They should also have the hypotheses.

It would be interesting to briefly describe the Binga district in which the study was conducted. A brief description of the existing health and social services would also be interesting.

In lines 109-110 do not understand the phrase “This technical excludes widows ...”. Perhaps it should be this view or these biases.

Indicate if there was any data extraction protocol. Did the authors use any qualitative research software such as Atlas-TI or similar?

On lines, 171-173,  delete the following text “This section may be divided by subheadings. It should provide a concise and precise 171 description of the experimental results, their interpretation, and the experimental 172 conclusions that can be drawn.”

The paragraph on lines 180-184 is cumbersome and difficult to read. A table of frequencies should replace it. “Two of 180 the twenty-four participants were between the ages of 20 and 29, one was between the 181 ages of 30 and 39, six were between the ages of 40 and 49, ten were between the ages of 50 182 and 59, two widows were between the ages of 60 and 69, and three widows did not know 183 their ages. The total number of widows who took part in the study was 24.

The abstract indicates that the study was conducted in the Binga district of Zimbabwe. The first time reference is made in the text to the Binga district. It should show that it is in Zimbabwe. (This is now done the second time it is mentioned in the text).

In line 152, please include the name of the university.

in Line 205 explain that CEDAW is the (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women).

Line 399 states that children had involuntary hiccups. Not well understood, could the authors develop it and explain it more.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for the comments on my manuscript. I have attended to all the corrections needed. See the attached correction sheet. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article entitled "When the challenges of widowhood extend to Childcare: Essential considerations for Social work practice" concerns the rarely explored subject of widowhood and parenthood. The study described was qualitative which gives a chance to collect more individually conditioned information that will help better understand the situation of widows with children and plan an effective social work practice.

Despite the interesting and important issues filling the gap in the currently available scientific literature, the manuscript contains errors and shortcomings. I list my comments below:

1. Lines 46-47: "This is a typical social problem and social dysfunction which social workers in practice aim to prevent and very significant in this paper" - this sentence is probably worded non-stylistically. Needs improvement.
2. Lines 78-82: 'From the findings of the study, it was confirmed that widows struggle to raise their children single-handedly since the deaths of their husbands reduces their resource-based drastically. This is coupled with traditional, greedy and oppressive practices such property grand land grabbing. Conclusions drawn affirm the need for social workers to have deliberate programs for assisting widows meet the needs of their children as opposed to current state of affairs in which interventions for the widows' plights are an afterthought " - the results and conclusions drawn shouldn't be a part of the Introduction section.
3. It is worth supplementing the final part of the Introduction section with the research questions that the authors asked before carrying out the research.
4. Lines 131-133: "(…) in which participants were chosen based on" experience or the fact that they might be odd or distinct from the norm. " Their selection was based on the eligibility criteria, not by Chance (...) - what does that mean exactly? on the basis of what criterion of widows were included in the study sample? Please provide inclusion / exclusion criteria.
5. Lines 136-138: "Ten widows took part in individual in-depth interviews, and 14 widows took part in two independent focus groups interviews" - why did the authors not choose one method of collecting interviews? Please explain that. What factors determined which group the widows belonged to?
6. In the data collection method section, please enter the date (month, year) of data collection
7. Lines 165-167: "After listening to each of the twenty-four (24) audio-recorded interviews, the researcher transcribed the conversations verbatim" - because the data collection is not exactly described, it is difficult to understand how it proceeded. Earlier, the authors write that ten widows took part in individual in-depth interviews, and 14 widows took part in two independent focus groups interviews. So what do they mean by "each of the 24 audio-recorded interviews"? Focus groups interviews are different from individual interviews. How did it happen that suddenly interviews conducted in different ways were reconciled?
8. Line 180: "The participants' ages ranged from 20 to 68 years old at the time of the study" - 20 to 68 is a big discrepancy, which in my opinion does not warrant a joint analysis. Authors should comment on the results of the study in terms of age in the discussion and also list it in the Limitation section (which is missing in the article)
9. Line 181: "The total number of widows who took part in the study was 24" - The sentence is unnecessary, the authors mentioned the number of participants several times before.
10. Lines 184-186: "When their husbands died, the widows were between the ages of 18 and 50. This is the normal age at which women look back on their lives and assess their accomplishments and happiness (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman 2013 ) ”- in what sense is the age between 18 and 50 years normal? The range is too large to represent the results without accounting for age differences.
11. Lines 191-192: "The widows who took part in the study all had children ranging in age from one to seven years old" - The sentence is not clear, the reader is not sure whether the age of the children refers to the moment when the women were widows or until you participate in the study.
12. The Limitations section is missing, please provide it.
13. I recommend English proofreading by a native speaker
14. In many places in the manuscript, the authors incorrectly use a double space between the full stop at the end of the sentence and the next sentence (i.e. lines 32, 35, and many more). I recommend that you carefully check all the text and remove any double spaces.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for all the comments on my manuscript. I have attended to all the comments as needed, Please see the correction sheet attached. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf