Impact of peer review on discussion of study limitations and strength of claims in randomized trial reports: a before and after study

Table 2 The results of the crude and adjusted analyses

	Manuscript	Publication	Crude difference or proportion^‡ (95% CI)	Adjusted difference^† (95% CI)
Number of limitation-acknowledging sentences (mean, SD)	2.48 (3.62)	3.87 (4.34)	1.39 (1.09–1.76)	0.62 (− 0.23–1.48)
Number of papers with zero limitation-acknowledging sentences (n/total)	202/446	147/446
Number of manuscripts with zero limitation-acknowledging sentences whose publication had at least one	63/202		31.2 (25.2–37.9)
Number of manuscripts with at least one limitation-acknowledging sentence whose publication had none		8/244	3.28 (1.67–6.34)
Unweighted hedges (%)	2.06 (0.76)	2.13 (0.74)	0.07 (0.04–0.10)	0.04 (− 0.05–0.14)
Unweighted hedges, limitation-acknowledging sentences excluded (%)	2.01 (0.77)	2.05 (0.76)	0.04 (0.01–0.08)	0.06 (− 0.03–0.16)
Weighted hedges (%)	7.07 (2.91)	7.30 (2.82)	0.23 (0.10–0.36)	0.09 (− 0.28–0.47)
Weighted hedges, limitation-acknowledging sentences excluded (%)	6.92 (2.95)	7.05 (2.89)	0.13 (0.01–0.26)	0.05 (− 0.32–0.43)

N = 440 because we were unable to find the impact factor of BMC Dermatology (contributing six manuscript-publication pairs); hedges were counted (and weighted), divided by the total number of words in the discussion section and multiplied by 100
SD standard deviation
^‡Crude difference estimated using a mixed regression model without covariables (N = 446)
^†Adjusted for journal impact factor (continuous), editorial team size (continuous), and composition of authors in terms of English proficiency (three dummy variables)

ISSN: 2058-8615