Negotiating Credibility: The Peer Review Process in Clinical Research

While the practice of anonymous prepublication peer review has historically functioned as a central element in academic quality control, its validity and efficiency have come under increasing challenge. The aim of the study was to investigate the ways in which scientific knowledge in the field of psychotherapy research is shaped by reviewer and author strategies for handling the review process. Reviewer-author correspondence arising from the review processes of articles successfully published in a major journal within the field was analyzed by use of qualitative methodology. Through grounded theory analysis of 10 review texts derived from both qualitative and quantitative articles, a model of structural features of the review process, in which reviewers and authors negotiated the credibility of articles with reference to the content, scientific rationale, technical adequacy, structure, and clarity of the paper, was derived. Building on findings from previous research, these results highlight the significance of social and interpersonal aspects of the review processes. Contrary to expectations, the interactions between reviewers and authors appeared fairly power-balanced. Implications for current review practices and further research are outlined and discussed.