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Making the case for double‐blind peer review in otolaryngology

Scholarly peer review is an important component of academia, its use dating back as far as the 1660s. It plays a particularly vital role in medicine, as it can serve as one of the safeguards against the publication of poorly performed scientific investigations. Peer review is widely supported in the academic community; surveys suggest that a large majority of researchers agree that it greatly helps scientific communication, and that it had improved their last published article. Traditionally, peer review has been single-blind. Authors are blinded to the identity of the reviewers, but reviewers are aware of the identity of the authors. This form of peer review has the potential to be biased either in favor of or against authors. There is significant evidence to suggest that single-blind peer review may be associated with bias both inside and outside of medicine. Examples of potential biases include authors’ gender, race, academic rank, years of experience, research productivity, ideological difference, geographic location, training pedigree, and the institution’s prestige. Ideally, articles should be evaluated based on scientific merit alone. By blinding both authors and reviewers, double-blind peer review attempts to do so by decreasing biases, both conscious and unconscious. Surveys suggest that double-blind is preferred among researchers, and is seen as being the most effective type of peer review. In medicine, numerous journals have embraced this method; however, most otolaryngology journals still have a single-blind peer review process. Double-blind peer review is a process that seems particularly suited for otolaryngology. Given the small nature of our field, reviewers are more likely to personally know the authors of an article compared to larger medical specialties. There are few drawbacks to implementing doubleblind peer review. Transitioning to a double-blind peer review process would not be difficult or costly. As most researchers view double-blind peer review as more fair and balanced, transitioning could increase confidence in the peer-review process by both researchers and readers. At the very least, this issue of double-blind review deserves further investigation. A period of double-blind peer review followed by a comparison of publication outcomes, or a randomized controlled study comparing singleand double-blind peer review, would prove helpful in addressing the issue.