PREreview of Homeless HIV-Seropositive Queer People’s Experiences at Healthcare Facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa

Write a short summary of the research’s main findings and how this work has moved the field forward.

Major issues

1. The topic needs to be remodified to “The experiences of homeless HIV seropositive queer people at health facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa”

2. The abstract is too long and contains unnecessary information and also the authors added a citation which we believe it is not appropriate in the abstract section. The abstract can be best written by capturing the problem statement and the objectives in the introduction, stating the databases searched and repositories, inclusion and exclusion criteria, data screening and extraction process and how the results will be synthesized in the method section. Also the results and conclusion should capture the relevance of the paper

3. The introduction section seems too long and we hope the authors could highlight the key concepts to avoid redundancy. We also suggest that the authors should consider removing the last paragraph which we believe it is unnecessary in the introduction section.

4. The systematic process used in this studies seems not to be appropriate, why the authors utilized the systematic review, we believe using a scoping review will be appropriate as the authors aim to map out information on healthcare access among homeless HIV seropositive queer people in Sub-Saharan Africa, the possibility of limited studies on this concept could affect the use of systematic review.

5. Also, the data search should be addressed as the authors used the wrong Boolean operator. It is advisable the authors contact experienced librarian or researcher in systematic literature review process. The inclusion criteria needs to be revised with so many unclear and unjustified reasons such as the studies from 2016 to 2025, the age 80+, using studies published in English language. Also, the structure of the method section is poorly arranged.

6. We also suggest the authors to state their data screening process to ensure transparency. The author should clearly state if the title and Abstract and full-text screening were done manually or using a software or tool. The

7. The inconsistency in the method section should be addressed under the “Discrepancies Between the Protocol and the Scoping Review” as it quite not clear what the authors are stating.

8. We are suggesting the authors could use some frameworks in their data synthesis such as Intersectionality Theory, ‎Health Stigma and Discrimination (HSD) Framework and ‎Gender Affirmative Model. The frame work used for their thematic analysis should be influenced by the information extracted from their included studies.

• Minor issues • List concerns that would improve the overall flow or clarity but are not critical to the understanding and conclusions of the research.

1. Address some grammatical construction and typographical errors

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The authors declare that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.