The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 151, Issue 2 , Pages 202-205, August 2007

A Comparison of Reviewers Selected by Editors and Reviewers Suggested by Authors

  • Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests: Dr. Frederick Rivara, Departments of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, University of Washington, Harborview Medical Center, Box 359960, 325 Ninth Ave., Seattle, WA 98104.
    • ,
  • Peter Cummings, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • ,
  • Sarah Ringold, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • ,
  • Abraham B. Bergman, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • ,
  • Alain Joffe, MD, MPH
    • ,
  • Dimitri A. Christakis, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
    • Department of Pediatrics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.

Received 8 July 2006; received in revised form 19 December 2006; accepted 1 February 2007.

Objective

To compare reviews done by editor-selected reviewers with reviews by author-suggested reviewers, examining the quality, timeliness, and recommendations of the 2 sets of reviewers.

Study design

Comparison of reviews for 140 manuscripts submitted to a pediatric journal in 2005. For each manuscript, a review by an editor-selected reviewer was compared with a review by an author-suggested reviewer. Reviews were rated using a 7-item quality scale with summary scores ranging from 0 (worst) to 100% (best).

Results

The mean quality score for all 7 items was 48.2% for reviewers selected by editors and 43.9% for reviewers suggested by authors, a small difference that was not statistically significant. Mean days to review completion was 25.4 for editor-selected reviewers and 27.8 for author-suggested reviewers; this difference also was not statistically significant. Editor-selected reviewers recommended acceptance less often than rejection or revision compared with author-suggested reviewers (risk ratio = 0.67; 95% confidence interval = 0.53 to 0.85).

Conclusions

Editor-selected reviewers did not give significantly higher-quality reviews, nor where they significantly faster compared with author-suggested reviewers. Editor-selected reviewers were less likely to recommend acceptance.

Abbreviations: CI, Confidence interval, RR, Risk ratio, SD, Standard deviation

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PII: S0022-3476(07)00125-4

doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2007.02.008

Refers to article:

  • Landmark, Landmine, or Landfill? The Role of Peer Review in Assessing Manuscripts

    William F. Balistreri
    The Journal of Pediatrics August 2007 (Vol. 151, Issue 2, Pages 107-108)

The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 151, Issue 2 , Pages 202-205, August 2007

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