Context.

Little research has been conducted into the quality of peer review and, in particular, the effects of blinding peer reviewers to authors'identities or masking peer reviewers'identities.

Objective

To determine whether concealing authors'identities from reviewers (blinding) and/or revealing the reviewer's identity to a coreviewer (unmasking) affects the quality of reviews, the time taken to carry out reviews, and the recommendation regarding publication.

Design and Setting

Randomized trial of 527 consecutive manuscripts submitted to BMJ, which were randomized and each sent to 2 peer reviewers.

Interventions

- Manuscripts were randomized as to whether the reviewers were unmasked, masked, or uninformed that a study was taking place.

Two reviewers for each manuscript were randomized to receive either a blinded or an unblinded version.

Main Outcome Measures

Mean total quality score, time taken to carry out the review, and recommendation regarding publication.

Results

Of the 527 manuscripts entered into the study, 467 (89%) were successfully randomized and followed up.

The mean total quality score was 2.87.

There was little or no difference in review quality between the masked and unmasked groups (scores of 2.82 and 2.96, respectively) and between the blinded and unblinded groups (scores of 2.87 and 2.90, respectively).

There was no apparent Hawthorne effect. (...)