Effect of Monetary Incentives on Peer Review Acceptance and … : Critical Care Medicine
tested the impact of providing cash incentives to complete peer review assignments at Critical Care Medicine. DESIGN: Quasi-randomized, blinded, interventional study with an alternating treatment design. SETTING: Critical Care Medicine (CCM), a peer-reviewed specialty journal. SUBJECTS: All reviewers receiving requests from CCM to review research articles during a 6-month period from September 2023 to March 2024 (excluding a 2-wk holiday window). INTERVENTIONS: In alternating 2-week blocks, reviewer invitation letters were sent out, including either an offer of $250 for accepting the peer review request (treatment) or the standard letter with no cash offer (control). Reviewers who fulfilled incentivized invitations received a $250 check from the journal. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Our primary outcome was the rate of invitation-to-completed-review conversion, defined as the number of reviews submitted divided by the number of reviewer invitations sent out. Secondary outcomes include
