title: A comparison of reviewers selected by editors and reviewers suggested by authors.
abstract: 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.
  
  
  METHODS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98104, USA. fpr@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: Frederick P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Rivara
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cummings
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ringold
authors.forename: Abraham B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Bergman
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Joffe
authors.forename: Dimitri A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Christakis
mesh_terms: D001319:Authorship; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D016265:Conflict of Interest; D035081:Editorial Policies; D006801:Humans; D008374:Manuscripts, Medical as Topic; D010372:Pediatrics; D010380:Peer Review / Q000592:standards*; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000592:standards; D017594:Publication Bias; D017749:Total Quality Management; D014481:United States