美国哈佛大学Leslie K John团队的一项最新研究，揭示了公开作者利益冲突在同行评审中的作用。该项研究成果发表在11月6日的《英国医学杂志》上。
研究组进行了一项随机对照试验，对《急诊医学年鉴》期刊进行分析。2014年6月2日至2018年1月23日，期刊共收到1480篇投稿文章，共邀请到838位审稿人。研究组将审稿人随机分组，观察组收到的稿件有完整的国际医学期刊编委会格式的利益冲突声明，对照组收到的稿件则未公开作者的利益冲突。审稿人像往常一样对稿件进行8个质量等级的评分，然后假设他们被分到另一组，再进行一次评分，即“反事实评分”。对审稿人审完后的稿件总体质量分数（1-5分）进行比较。
结果表明提供作者利益冲突声明并未影响审稿人对稿件质量的评分结果，对照组2.70分，观察组2.74分；甚至对于有利益冲突的稿件亦无影响，对照组2.85分，观察组2.96分，差异均无统计学意义。而在稿件的其他7个质量等级中，两组审稿人的评分亦无显著差异。
研究中，审稿人都承认利益冲突是一个重要的问题，并相信公开利益冲突会影响他们对稿件的评价。然而，他们给出的反事实评分却与事实评分无显著差异，事实评分为2.69分，反事实评分为2.67分。当文章报告有利益冲突时，不同的利益来源（例如政府或营利性公司）之间也没有差异。
现行的伦理标准要求公开所有科学报告的利益冲突。按目前的实施，这一做法对真正的同行评审对出版稿件的质量评估没有影响。
附：英文原文
Title: Effect of revealing authors’ conflicts of interests in peer review: randomized controlled trial
Author: Leslie K John, George Loewenstein, Andrew Marder, Michael L Callaham
Issue&Volume: 2019/11/06
Abstract:
Objective To assess the effect of disclosing authors’ conflict of interest declarations to peer reviewers at a medical journal.
Design Randomized controlled trial.
Setting Manuscript review process at the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Participants Reviewers (n=838) who reviewed manuscripts submitted between 2 June 2014 and 23 January 2018 inclusive (n=1480 manuscripts).
Intervention Reviewers were randomized to either receive (treatment) or not receive (control) authors’ full International Committee of Medical Journal Editors format conflict of interest disclosures before reviewing manuscripts. Reviewers rated the manuscripts as usual on eight quality ratings and were then surveyed to obtain “counterfactual scores”—that is, the scores they believed they would have given had they been assigned to the opposite arm—as well as attitudes toward conflicts of interest.
Main outcome measure Overall quality score that reviewers assigned to the manuscript on submitting their review (1 to 5 scale). Secondary outcomes were scores the reviewers submitted for the seven more specific quality ratings and counterfactual scores elicited in the follow-up survey.
Results Providing authors’ conflict of interest disclosures did not affect reviewers’ mean ratings of manuscript quality (Mcontrol=2.70 (SD 1.11) out of 5; Mtreatment=2.74 (1.13) out of 5; mean difference 0.04, 95% confidence interval –0.05 to 0.14), even for manuscripts with disclosed conflicts (Mcontrol= 2.85 (1.12) out of 5; Mtreatment=2.96 (1.16) out of 5; mean difference 0.11, –0.05 to 0.26). Similarly, no effect of the treatment was seen on any of the other seven quality ratings that the reviewers assigned. Reviewers acknowledged conflicts of interest as an important matter and believed that they could correct for them when they were disclosed. However, their counterfactual scores did not differ from actual scores (Mactual=2.69; Mcounterfactual=2.67; difference in means 0.02, 0.01 to 0.02). When conflicts were reported, a comparison of different source types (for example, government, for-profit corporation) found no difference in effect.
Conclusions Current ethical standards require disclosure of conflicts of interest for all scientific reports. As currently implemented, this practice had no effect on any quality ratings of real manuscripts being evaluated for publication by real peer reviewers.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.l5896
Source: https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l5896
BMJ-British Medical Journal:《英国医学杂志》，创刊于1840年。隶属于BMJ出版集团，最新IF：93.333
官方网址：http://www.bmj.com/
投稿链接：https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/bmj
本期文章：《英国医学杂志》：Volume 367 Issue 8221
