Howard L, Wilkinson G
Institute of Psychiatry, London.
Br J Psychiatry. 1998 Aug;173:110-3; discussion 114-5. doi: 10.1192/bjp.173.2.110.
This paper describes and analyses the editor's decision-making process at the British Journal of Psychiatry (BJP), and investigates the association between reviewers' assessments and editorial decisions.
Four hundred consecutive manuscripts submitted over a six-month period to the BJP were examined prospectively for assessors' comments and editorial decisions on acceptance or rejection. Interrater reliability of assessments was calculated and a logistic regression analysis investigated the effect of the rank allocated by assessors and the comprehensiveness of the assessments on the editor's decision.
The editor sent 248/400 (62%) manuscripts to assessors for peer review. Kappa for reliability of assessors rankings was 0.1 indicating poor interrater reliability. Assessors agreed best on whether to reject a paper. A ranking of five (indicating rejection) had the greatest association with editor's rejection (P < 0.001, odds ratio 0.079), and the mean ranking of assessments was also significantly associated with editorial acceptance or rejection (P = 0.004, odds ratio 0.24).
Assessors and editors tend to agree on what is clearly not acceptable for publication but there is less agreement on what is suitable.
本文描述并分析了《英国精神病学杂志》（BJP）编辑的决策过程，并研究了审稿人的评估与编辑决策之间的关联。
前瞻性地检查了在六个月内向BJP提交的400篇连续稿件，以获取评估者的意见以及关于接受或拒绝的编辑决策。计算了评估的评分者间信度，并进行了逻辑回归分析，以研究评估者给出的等级以及评估的全面性对编辑决策的影响。
编辑将248/400（62%）的稿件送交评估者进行同行评审。评估者排名的信度卡方值为0.1，表明评分者间信度较差。评估者在是否拒绝一篇论文上的意见最为一致。评分为5（表示拒绝）与编辑的拒绝之间的关联最大（P < 0.001，比值比0.079），评估的平均评分也与编辑的接受或拒绝显著相关（P = 0.004，比值比0.24）。
评估者和编辑在明显不适合发表的内容上往往意见一致，但在什么是合适的内容上意见较少一致。
