Interessekonflikter i fagfællebedømmelse af biomedicinsk forskning

While conflicts of interest among authors of biomedical manuscripts have received much attention, little is known about conflicts of interest among peer reviewers. The Committee on Publication Ethics’ ‘Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers’ describe how reviewers should disclose relevant conflicts of interest in order to provide a fair and unbiased review (Cope Council 2017). However, a survey of medical journal editors by Cooper and colleagues found that only 42 of 91 editors (46%) reported that the journal had a specific conflict of interest policy for peer reviewers (2006). Regrettably the authors did not undertake an actual analysis of the content of conflicts of interest polices or investigate how editors manage peer reviewers’ conflicts of interest in practice. Furthermore, we are unaware of any studies reporting on the prevalence of conflicts of interest among peer reviewers. One older experimental study by Mahoney on fictitious manuscripts in behavioural psychology found that reviewers were more critical and more often recommended rejection when results in manuscripts contradicted the reviewer’s theoretical perspective (1977). Similarly, a qualitative study on grant reviews by Abdoul and colleagues found that one-third of grant applicants reported personal experience with peer reviewers’ non-financial conflicts of interest in the application process (2012). While both studies suggest that non-financial conflicts of interest may influence peer reviewer recommendations, we are unaware of any empirical studies investigating the influence of conflicts of interest on the content of reviewer reports of actual manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. How biomedical journals address and manage peer reviewers’ conflicts of interest, how frequent such conflicts are and whether they have influence on the content of reviewer reports therefore remains unknown. Our project consists of four studies with the overall aim of investigating conflicts of interest in peer review of biomedical research.

Fagfællebedømmelse af videnskabelige artikler, såkaldt peer review, er vigtigt for at sikre artiklernes kvalitet. Der er dog risiko for, at bedømmerens personlige holdninger og interessekonflikter kan få indflydelse på selve bedømmelsen af artiklen og dermed hvilke studier og resultater, der publiceres.

Både finansielle interessekonflikter og ikke-finansielle interessekonflikter kan have betydning. Finansielle interessekonflikter kan opstå, når bedømmeren har økonomisk samarbejde med et firma, hvis lægemiddel indgår i det forsøg, vedkommende skal bedømme. Ikke-finansielle interessekonflikter kan opstå, når bedømmeren tilhører en særlig faggruppe, der har præference for en bestemt behandling, f.eks. når psykiatere eller psykologer skal bedømme et forsøg af antidepressiva overfor psykoterapi.

Talrige videnskabelige studier har vist, at forskere med interessekonflikter oftere drager positive konklusioner i deres artikler i forhold til forskere uden interessekonflikter. Men interessekonflikter hos peer reviewere er dog sparsomt undersøgt.

I fire studier vil vi undersøge, hvordan sundhedsvidenskabelige tidsskrifter håndterer peer revieweres interessekonflikter, hvor hyppigt interessekonflikter forekommer blandt peer reviewere, og hvorvidt deres interessekonflikter er associeret med bedømmelsen af artiklerne. Resultaterne fra studierne kan på sigt føre til bedre retningslinjer hos tidsskrifterne, og dermed øge kvaliteten af de videnskabelige artikler og sikre en fair bedømmelse.