Mainous Iii Arch G, Kellie J A, Liu-Galvin Rachel E, Durden Barbara, Beau de Rochars Valery M
Department of Community Health and Family Medicine, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
Department of Health Services Research, Management, and Policy, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2025 Jun 9;12:1586885. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1586885. eCollection 2025.
Peer-review is the lynchpin to research integrity, quality and trust in published health research findings.
To evaluate the level of trust in peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed medical research among scientists who publish medical research.
A survey was conducted of corresponding authors of papers accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed medical journal between September and December 2024 ( = 285). Survey questions focused on trust in the results in peer-review and non-peer-reviewed results. Deidentified data was provided to the current investigators for a secondary analysis. The level of press freedom in the country and whether the investigators in the country were oriented toward scientific papermills for publishing research was also evaluated.
Although 94% of the respondents have high trust in peer-reviewed research, a significant proportion (32.4%) have trust in non-peer-reviewed research. A majority (54.7%) believe that public trust in medical research findings is influenced by the reader's political beliefs. The current peer review system is too slow (79%). Respondents from countries with a high prevalence of use of scientific papermills and low press freedom had more agreement that non-peer-reviewed research should be indexed than those from other countries (both < 0.01). Authors who have published few papers are more trusting of non-peer-reviewed research (.006) and more in agreement that non-peer-reviewed research should be indexed (.015).
Rebuilding the guardrails and trust in peer-review is necessary. A more streamlined peer-review system may be necessary to rebuild trust.
同行评审是已发表的健康研究结果的研究诚信、质量和可信度的关键。
评估发表医学研究的科学家对经过同行评审和未经同行评审的医学研究的信任程度。
对2024年9月至12月在一本同行评审医学期刊上被接受发表的论文的通讯作者进行了一项调查（n = 285）。调查问题聚焦于对同行评审结果和非同行评审结果的信任。经过去识别化处理的数据被提供给当前的研究人员进行二次分析。还评估了该国的新闻自由程度以及该国的研究人员是否倾向于通过科学论文工厂发表研究。
尽管94%的受访者对同行评审的研究高度信任，但仍有相当比例（32.4%）对非同行评审的研究表示信任。大多数人（54.7%）认为公众对医学研究结果的信任受到读者政治信仰的影响。当前的同行评审系统过于缓慢（79%）。与其他国家的受访者相比，来自科学论文工厂使用率高且新闻自由程度低的国家的受访者更认同非同行评审的研究应该被索引（均P < 0.01）。发表论文较少的作者更信任非同行评审的研究（P = 0.006），并且更认同非同行评审的研究应该被索引（P = 0.015）。
重建对同行评审的保障措施和信任是必要的。可能需要一个更精简的同行评审系统来重建信任。
