engleski

Whither Peer Review Research? Analysis of Study Design, Publication Output, and Funding of Research Presented at Peer Review Congresses

Objective As the history of peer review research in biomedicine is the history of Peer Review Congresses, we analyzed study designs, publication outputs, and sources of funding of research presented at 6 previous Congresses (1989-2009). Design Retrospective cohort study. We classified study design of all abstracts presented, searched MEDLINE, Web of Science, and the Peer Review Congress website for corresponding full articles, and collected data on authorship, time to publication, article availability, and declared funding sources. Results Research presented (n=504) was mostly observational (Table 9). Over time, the number of discussion papers decreased (χ21 for trend=47.422, P<.001) and of cohort studies increased (χ21=10.744, P=.001). A total of 305 (60.5%) presentations were later published in journals (in 10 instances, 2 abstracts were later published as a single paper). Many articles from the first 4 Congresses were published in JAMA special issues (120, 39.3 %) ; most (63.4%) are currently freely available. The median time to publication in journals other than JAMA was 14.0 months (95% CI, 12.0- 16.0). Funding was analyzed in 292 publications available in full text: 54.8% did not mention funding, 8.6% declared no funding, 16.1% had governmental funding, 7.2% private funding, 3.8% university funding, 3.1% publishers’ funding, 3.8% declared their salary sources, 0.7% pharmaceutical funding, and 2.0% other sources. The proportion of funded studies increased over time from 20.6% in 1989 to 43.9% in 2009, with a peak of 55.9% in 2005 (χ21=15.490, P<.001). The mean number of authors increased from 2.1 (95% CI, 1.3-2.2) in 1989 to 3.9 (95% CI, 3.5-4.4) in 2009 (P<.001, ANOVA). There were no changes to the byline of authors between the abstract and published articles for 165 (56.5%) of papers, 82 (28.1%) had changes in the number of authors, and 45 (15.4%) had changes in the byline order. Conclusions Underreporting is common in research conducted by a community aware of research underreporting ; the causes for not publishing are not clear. There is a need for better and more systematic funding of peer review research.

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