Trial reportBMJ evidence-based medicine2025
Improving peer review of systematic reviews and related review types by involving librarians and information specialists as methodological peer reviewers: a randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in BMJ evidence-based medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Improving peer review of systematic reviews and related review types by involving librarians and information specialists as methodological peer reviewers: a randomised controlled trial.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2025Trial
- Article
- Reporting Quality of Trend Analyses Published in Leading Medicine and Oncology Journals during 2008-2018.Exploratory research and hypothesis in medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the impact of adding librarians and information specialists (LIS) as methodological peer reviewers to the formal journal peer review process on the quality of search reporting and risk of bias in systematic review searches in the medical literature.
designPragmatic two-group parallel randomised controlled trial.
settingThree biomedical journals.
participantsSystematic reviews and related evidence synthesis manuscripts submitted to
interventionsAll manuscripts followed usual journal practice for peer review, but those in the intervention group had an additional (LIS) peer reviewer invited.
main outcome measuresThe primary outcomes are the differences in first revision manuscripts between intervention and control groups in the quality of reporting and risk of bias. Quality of reporting was measured using four prespecified PRISMA-S items. Risk of bias was measured using ROBIS Domain 2. Assessments were done in duplicate and assessors were blinded to group allocation. Secondary outcomes included differences between groups for each individual PRISMA-S and ROBIS Domain 2 item. The difference in the proportion of manuscripts rejected as the first decision post-peer review between the intervention and control groups was an additional outcome.
resultsDifferences in the proportion of adequately reported searches (4.4% difference, 95% CI: -2.0% to 10.7%) and risk of bias in searches (0.5% difference, 95% CI: -13.7% to 14.6%) showed no statistically significant differences between groups. By 4 months post-study, 98 intervention and 70 control group manuscripts had been rejected after peer review (13.8% difference, 95% CI: 3.9% to 23.8%).
conclusionsInviting LIS peer reviewers did not impact adequate reporting or risk of bias of searches in first revision manuscripts of biomedical systematic reviews and related review types, though LIS peer reviewers may have contributed to a higher rate of rejection after peer review. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Open Science Framework: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/W4CK2.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.