Introduction
The question that has been posted by the authors in this article are well defined since we get a pretty good picture of the relation between telomere length, mental health, and hypertension during the end stages of renal disorder or ESRD in patients. The authors have clearly defined what ESRD is along with what leads to such a disease. The methods used are appropriate and have also been described very well.
The participants with ESRD were carefully recruited and interviewed. The method also included the opinion of senior psychiatrists who followed the Diagnostic Statistical Manual. Also, the Chinese Health Questionnaire or CHQ was used in this study which is a self-administered screening questionnaire. This, however, could have been changed as a research of this degree needs the use of well-structured and a whole new set of questionnaires that would have been modeled solely on the objectives of the research.
Discretionary Revisions
The data provided is completely sound and accurate since the data collection protocols that have been used here have received the approval of an institutional review board from a general hospital in Taiwan. Further data analysis has been carried out through SPSS 15.0 and AMOS 7.0 has been used for constructing the different structural equation models. The authors have also used primary descriptive strategies and multiple linear regression analysis. The manuscript adheres to the relevant standards for reporting and data deposition.
The research undertaken has even been confirmed by the research grant of the Medical Affairs Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. The conclusions drawn from the reports made and data deposited are accurate and have been even certified by the senior psychiatrists of general teaching hospitals. However, it should be noted that for the absolute success of this paper the variables should have been more elaborate and the population of Patients should have been more than the 105 mark. A higher number would have given an accurate and dependable result.
Minor Essential Revisions
The discussion and conclusions provided are well balanced and have been adequately supported by the data deposited. The study has effectively concluded that ESRD patients display short telomere lengths due to the effects of their mental health, which is the proximal factor, and hypertension, which is the distal factor. The study also concluded that mental health acted as the mediator between telomere length and hypertension in an ESRD patient. The authors have acknowledged the works on which the study has been based.
All of these works have been started in the References portion along with the name of the authors responsible for the works. But it is difficult to relate the works to the study conducted. The title and abstract of this research paper have accurately conveyed the findings of this paper. The abstract o the paper is complete since it provides the readers with a background on the study, the method used for conducting the study, elaborately describes the results obtained, an appropriate conclusion to the overall study, and the important keywords related to the study conducted. The title of the paper matches the conclusion obtained. However, the language is too academic and therefore too rigid. The paper should have been written in a form that is not only statistically valid but balanced too.
Major Compulsory Revisions
The authors have clearly stated the limitations of the study. According to them since a very small number of ESRD patients were used as sample subjects, the limitations have become apparent. Another limitation of the study is that it did not use a control group for carrying out the research and thus they have not been able to ascertain whether the results apply only to ESRD patients or to everyone.
Further, the mental health of the ESRD patients had not been evaluated for their longitudinal measurement. The writing of this paper is acceptable since the authors have used proper technical terms whenever required. However, the results, discussions, and conclusions have been written using language that a layman would not understand.
References
Shiang, J-C,. Kao, WT. & Lun, FW. (2009). Relationship Among Mental Health, Hypertension And Telomere Length In End-Stage Renal Disorder Patients. Taipei, Taiwan: Department of Psychiatry, National Defense Medical Center.