Highlights
- •Predatory physical therapy journals publish randomized controlled trials of lower quality and have shorter times for peer review process than journals not included in Beall's list.
- •Due to the great number of papers published by predatory physical therapy journals, there is a clear risk that predatory publishers substantially contribute to the dissemination of unsound research findings.
Abstract
Objectives
To compare the quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in predatory
and nonpredatory journals in the field of physical therapy.
Data Sources
From a list of 18 journals included either on Beall’s list (n=9) or in the Directory
of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (n=9), 2 independent assessors extracted all the RCTs
published between 2014 and 2017. When journals published more than 40 RCTs, a sample
of 40 trials was randomly extracted, preserving the proportions among years. Indexing
in PubMed, country of journal publication, and dates of submission or acceptance were
also recorded for each journal.
Main Outcome Measures
The PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database) scale and duration of the peer review.
Results
Four hundred ten RCTs were included. The mean PEDro score of articles published in
non-Beall, DOAJ journals was higher than those published in Beall journals (mean score
± SD, 5.8±1.7 vs 4.5±1.5; P<.001), with the differences increasing when the indexing in PubMed was also considered
(6.5±1.5 vs 4.4±1.5; P<.001). The peer review duration was significantly longer in non-Beall than in Beall
journals (mean duration [d] ± SD, 145.2±92.9 vs 45.4±38.8; P<.001) and in journals indexed in PubMed than in nonindexed journals (136.6±100.7
vs 60.4±55.7; P<.001). Indexing in PubMed was the strongest independent variable associated with
the PEDro score (adjusted R2=0.182), but noninclusion on Beall’s list explained an additional, albeit small, portion
of the PEDro score variance (cumulative adjusted R2=0.214).
Conclusions
Potentially predatory journals publish lower-quality trials and have a shorter peer
review process than non-Beall journals included in the DOAJ database.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), NPJ (nonpredatory journal), PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database), PJ (predatory journal), RCT (randomized controlled trial)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 27, 2020
Footnotes
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 by the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine
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- CorrectionArchives of Physical Medicine and RehabilitationVol. 102Issue 2
- PreviewIn the article by Bianchini et al, Open Access Physical Therapy Journals: Do Predatory Journals Publish Lower-Quality Randomized Controlled Trials?, published in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2020;101:969-977 https://www.archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(20)30024-1/fulltext , a co-author’s name was misspelled in the byline. It should be: Carola Cosentino.
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