Levis Alexander W, Leentjens Albert F G, Levenson James L, Lumley Mark A, Thombs Brett D
Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, QC, Canada.
Department of Psychiatry, Maastricht University Medical Center, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
J Psychosom Res. 2015 Dec;79(6):561-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2015.08.004. Epub 2015 Aug 22.
Some peer reviewers may inappropriately, or coercively request that authors include references to the reviewers' own work. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether, compared to reviews for a journal with single-blind peer review, reviews for a journal with open peer review included (1) fewer self-citations; (2) a lower proportion of self-citations without a rationale; and (3) a lower ratio of proportions of citations without a rationale in self-citations versus citations to others' work.
Peer reviews for published manuscripts submitted in 2012 to a single-blind peer review journal, the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, were previously evaluated (Thombs et al., 2015). These were compared to publically available peer reviews of manuscripts published in 2012 in an open review journal, BMC Psychiatry. Two investigators independently extracted data for both journals.
There were no significant differences between journals in the proportion of all reviewer citations that were self-citations (Journal of Psychosomatic Research: 71/225, 32%; BMC Psychiatry: 90/315, 29%; p=.50), or in the proportion of self-citations without a rationale (Journal of Psychosomatic Research: 15/71, 21%; BMC Psychiatry: 12/90, 13%; p=.21). There was no significant difference between journals in the proportion of self-citations versus citations to others' work without a rationale (p=.31).
Blind and open peer review methodologies have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The present study found that, in reasonably similar journals that use single-blind and open review, there were no substantive differences in the pattern of peer reviewer self-citations.
一些同行评审人员可能会不恰当地或强制要求作者引用评审人员自己的作品。本研究的目的是评估与单盲同行评审期刊的评审相比，开放同行评审期刊的评审是否包括：（1）更少的自引；（2）无理由自引的比例更低；（3）无理由自引与引用他人作品的比例之比更低。
先前对2012年提交给单盲同行评审期刊《身心研究杂志》的已发表手稿的同行评审进行了评估（汤姆斯等人，2015年）。将这些评审与2012年在开放评审期刊《BMC精神病学》上发表的手稿的公开同行评审进行比较。两名研究人员独立提取了两种期刊的数据。
两种期刊在所有评审人员引用中自引的比例（《身心研究杂志》：71/225，32%；《BMC精神病学》：90/315，29%；p = 0.50），或无理由自引的比例（《身心研究杂志》：15/71，21%；《BMC精神病学》：12/90，13%；p = 0.21）方面没有显著差异。两种期刊在无理由自引与引用他人作品的比例方面没有显著差异（p = 0.31）。
盲法和开放同行评审方法各有优缺点。本研究发现，在使用单盲和开放评审的相当类似的期刊中，同行评审人员自引模式没有实质性差异。
