A comparison of reviewers selected by editors and reviewers suggested by authors.
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.
Rivara
Frederick P
FP
Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98104, USA. fpr@u.washington.edu
Cummings
Peter
P
Ringold
Sarah
S
Bergman
Abraham B
AB
Joffe
Alain
A
Christakis
Dimitri A
DA
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