Effect of using reporting guidelines during peer review on quality of final manuscripts submitted to a biomedical journal: masked randomised trial

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Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of an additional review based on reporting guidelines such as STROBE and CONSORT on quality of manuscripts.

Design Masked randomised trial.

Population Original research manuscripts submitted to the Medicina Clínica journal from May 2008 to April 2009 and considered suitable for publication.

Intervention Control group: conventional peer reviews alone. Intervention group: conventional review plus an additional review looking for missing items from reporting guidelines.

Outcomes Manuscript quality, assessed with a 5 point Likert scale (primary: overall quality; secondary: average quality of specific items in paper). Main analysis compared groups as allocated, after adjustment for baseline factors (analysis of covariance); sensitivity analysis compared groups as reviewed. Adherence to reviewer suggestions assessed with Likert scale.

Results Of 126 consecutive papers receiving conventional review, 34 were not suitable for publication. The remaining 92 papers were allocated to receive conventional reviews alone (n=41) or additional reviews (n=51). Four papers assigned to the conventional review group deviated from protocol; they received an additional review based on reporting guidelines. We saw an improvement in manuscript quality in favour of the additional review group (comparison as allocated, 0.25, 95% confidence interval –0.05 to 0.54; as reviewed, 0.33, 0.03 to 0.63). More papers with additional reviews than with conventional reviews alone improved from baseline (22 (43%) v eight (20%), difference 23.6% (3.2% to 44.0%), number needed to treat 4.2 (from 2.3 to 31.2), relative risk 2.21 (1.10 to 4.44)). Authors in the additional review group adhered more to suggestions from conventional reviews than to those from additional reviews (average increase 0.43 Likert points (0.19 to 0.67)).

Conclusions Additional reviews based on reporting guidelines improve manuscript quality, although the observed effect was smaller than hypothesised and not definitively demonstrated. Authors adhere more to suggestions from conventional reviews than to those from additional reviews, showing difficulties in adhering to high methodological standards at the latest research phases. To boost paper quality and impact, authors should be aware of future requirements of reporting guidelines at the very beginning of their study.

Trial registration and protocol Although registries do not include trials of peer review, the protocol design was submitted to sponsored research projects (Instituto de Salud Carlos III, PI081903).

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Long Term Outcomes Following Hospital Admission for Sepsis Using Relative Survival Analysis: A Prospective Cohort Study of 1,092 Patients with 5 Year Follow Up

Joshua Davis, Vincent He, Nicholas Anstey … (2014)

Background Sepsis is a leading cause of death in intensive care units and is increasing in incidence. Current trials of novel therapeutic approaches for sepsis focus on 28-day mortality as the primary outcome measure, but excess mortality may extend well beyond this time period. Methods We used relative survival analysis to examine excess mortality in a cohort of 1,028 patients admitted to a tertiary referral hospital with sepsis during 2007–2008, over the first 5 years of follow up. Expected survival was estimated using the Ederer II method, using Australian life tables as the reference population. Cumulative and interval specific relative survival were estimated by age group, sex, sepsis severity and Indigenous status. Results Patients were followed for a median of 4.5 years (range 0–5.2). Of the 1028 patients, the mean age was 46.9 years, 52% were male, 228 (22.2%) had severe sepsis and 218 (21%) died during the follow up period. Mortality based on cumulative relative survival exceeded that of the reference population for the first 2 years post admission in the whole cohort and for the first 3 years in the subgroup with severe sepsis. Independent predictors of mortality over the whole follow up period were male sex, Indigenous Australian ethnicity, older age, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index, and sepsis-related organ dysfunction at presentation. Conclusions The mortality rate of patients hospitalised with sepsis exceeds that of the general population until 2 years post admission. Efforts to improve outcomes from sepsis should examine longer term outcomes than the traditional primary endpoints of 28-day and 90-day mortality.

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Preparation of Artificial Plasma Membrane Mimicking Vesicles with Lipid Asymmetry

Qingqing Lin, Erwin London (2014)

Lipid asymmetry, the difference in lipid distribution across the lipid bilayer, is one of the most important features of eukaryotic cellular membranes. However, commonly used model membrane vesicles cannot provide control of lipid distribution between inner and outer leaflets. We recently developed methods to prepare asymmetric model membrane vesicles, but facile incorporation of a highly controlled level of cholesterol was not possible. In this study, using hydroxypropyl-α-cyclodextrin based lipid exchange, a simple method was devised to prepare large unilamellar model membrane vesicles that closely resemble mammalian plasma membranes in terms of their lipid composition and asymmetry (sphingomyelin (SM) and/or phosphatidylcholine (PC) outside/phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylserine (PS) inside), and in which cholesterol content can be readily varied between 0 and 50 mol%. We call these model membranes “artificial plasma membrane mimicking” (“PMm”) vesicles. Asymmetry was confirmed by both chemical labeling and measurement of the amount of externally-exposed anionic lipid. These vesicles should be superior and more realistic model membranes for studies of lipid-lipid and lipid-protein interaction in a lipid environment that resembles that of mammalian plasma membranes.

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Outcomes in Patients with Acute and Stable Coronary Syndromes; Insights from the Prospective NOBORI-2 Study

Farzin Fath-Ordoubadi, Erik Spaepen, Magdi El-Omar … (2014)

Background Contemporary data remains limited regarding mortality and major adverse cardiac events (MACE) outcomes in patients undergoing PCI for different manifestations of coronary artery disease. Objectives We evaluated mortality and MACE outcomes in patients treated with PCI for STEMI (ST-elevation myocardial infarction), NSTEMI (non ST-elevation myocardial infarction) and stable angina through analysis of data derived from the Nobori-2 study. Methods Clinical endpoints were cardiac mortality and MACE (a composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction and target vessel revascularization). Results 1909 patients who underwent PCI were studied; 1332 with stable angina, 248 with STEMI and 329 with NSTEMI. Age-adjusted Charlson co-morbidity index was greatest in the NSTEMI cohort (3.78±1.91) and lowest in the stable angina cohort (3.00±1.69); P<0.0001. Following Cox multivariate analysis cardiac mortality was independently worse in the NSTEMI vs the stable angina cohort (HR 2.31 (1.10–4.87), p = 0.028) but not significantly different for STEMI vs stable angina cohort (HR 0.72 (0.16–3.19), p = 0.67). Similar observations were recorded for MACE (<180 days) (NSTEMI vs stable angina: HR 2.34 (1.21–4.55), p = 0.012; STEMI vs stable angina: HR 2.19 (0.97–4.98), p = 0.061. Conclusions The longer-term Cardiac mortality and MACE were significantly worse for patients following PCI for NSTEMI even after adjustment of clinical demographics and Charlson co-morbidity index whilst the longer-term prognosis of patients following PCI STEMI was favorable, with similar outcomes as those patients with stable angina following PCI.

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Author and article information

Contributors

: Role: senior statistics editor and senior statistical lecturer

: Role: statistical researcher

: Role: general secretary and chief of clinical haematology department

: Role: general secretary and professor of internal medicine

: Role: editorial committee member and senior lecturer in internal medicine

: Role: statistical researcher

: Role: professor of statistics in medicine

: Role: senior statistical lecturer

: Role: statistical researcher

: Role: editorial committee member and senior lecturer in internal medicine

: Role: editorial committee member and professor of internal medicine

: Role: current editor and professor of internal medicine

: Role: editor in chief and professor of internal medicine

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMJ

Journal ID (publisher-id): bmj

Title: BMJ : British Medical Journal

Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.

ISSN (Print): 0959-8138

ISSN (Electronic): 1468-5833

Publication date Collection: 2011

Publication date (Print): 2011

Publication date (Electronic): 22 November 2011

Volume: 343

Electronic Location Identifier: d6783

Affiliations

[1 ]Medicina Clínica, Elsevier-Barcelona, Barcelona 08021, Spain

[2 ]Universitat Politècnica Catalunya, Barcelona

[3 ]Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona

[4 ]Hospital Germans Trias I Pujol, Badalona, Spain

[5 ]José Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute, Catalan Institute of Oncology, ICO, Badalona

[6 ]Universitat de Barcelona and Hospital Clínic, Barcelona

[7 ]Vall D’Hebron Hospital, Barcelona

[8 ]Primary Health Care Center Les Corts, GESCLINIC, Barcelona

[9 ]Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, Barcelona

[10 ]Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

Author notes

Correspondence to: E Cobo erik.cobo@ 123456upc.edu

Article

Publisher ID: cobe870071

DOI: 10.1136/bmj.d6783

PMC ID: 3222149

PubMed ID: 22108262

SO-VID: cb8a132d-4345-42d6-8821-7411a7d28960

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.

Effect of using reporting guidelines during peer review on quality of final manuscripts submitted to a biomedical journal: masked randomised trial

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Most cited references 20

Long Term Outcomes Following Hospital Admission for Sepsis Using Relative Survival Analysis: A Prospective Cohort Study of 1,092 Patients with 5 Year Follow Up

Preparation of Artificial Plasma Membrane Mimicking Vesicles with Lipid Asymmetry

Outcomes in Patients with Acute and Stable Coronary Syndromes; Insights from the Prospective NOBORI-2 Study

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