An Insight into Knowledge, Perspective, and Practices of Indian Optometrists towards Childhood Myopia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript “An insight into knowledge, perspective, and practices of Indian optometrists towards childhood myopia” by Naik is a research article which examined examined optometrists' knowledge, attitude, and practice towards childhood myopia, in which a survey was circulated online among practising optometrists in India. The authors found that a significant proportion of respondents were unaware of the ocular complications associated with high myopia, with less than half routinely measuring axial length in clinical practice. Although the awareness of emerging myopia management options was increased, the uptake remains generally poor, with single-vision distance full correction spectacles being the most common mode of vision correction. Whereas practitioner knowledge, perspective, and practice are improving, childhood myopia management evidence is constantly evolving and remains inconclusive. In general, this review article is critical in this field and contains essential contents. However, I have several comments before this manuscript is accepted for publication.

1. In Figure 1, bar graphs were used. In my opinion, pie chart or bar chart should be better to show the percentage of respondents.

2. Clinical practice behavior related to the diagnosis and management of myopia was investigated in children aged 16 years or younger in this study. Please explain why the clinical practice behavior was accessed in this age!

3. Did the authors find any differences in an insight into knowledge, perspective, and practices between boys and girls because it is known that rates of progressive high myopia are higher among women than men?

Author Response

The response to reviewer 1 is attached as a pdf document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

This manuscript explores optometrists' knowledge, attitude, and practice towards childhood myopia. This study is interesting, complex, and well-written. My remarks are the following:

General remarks:

                --> the MDPI template should be respected (for all paragraphs and for tables too)

                --> some English corrections are needed; sometimes, there are phrases without a clear meaning.

--> Overall, it seems that the Introduction is rather brief, and it should in fact reflect detailed points regarding the following ideas: statement of the problem, significance of the problem, possible solutions, advantages and limitations, research gap and aim of your study to fill in this gap.

--> Why did you not determine the reliability of your questionnaire?  

--> Did you perform any validation of your questionnaire? How about internal consistency verification based on Cornbach’s alpha coefficient, or sampling adequacy based on Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure and Bartlett's test of sphericity? These are important parameters related to questionnaires.

--> You should add odds ratio values and p values to your tables – it would be easier to follow.

--> You included demographic questions (education and occupation) also. In my opinion, you should add some tables (or update the existing ones) to clearly emphasize the statistically significant differences between responses from various categories of respondents, not only describe them textually.

Best regards!

Minor modifications are necessary.

Author Response

The response to reviewer 2 is attached as a pdf document.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf