Appendix B. Selection, Names, and Tasks of Peer Reviewers

An important first step in the identification of potential peer reviewers was to determine the appropriate constituencies from which our reviewers should be drawn. Although the categories are fairly self-explanatory, we note the following details for clarification. Individual experts engaged mainly in alcoholism research (as contrasted with medical practice per se) were included in category 1 (clinical practice and health care delivery, six reviewers) because they are based in health care delivery organizations and, we judged, are likely to be involved to some extent in patient care. Category 2 comprised representatives from professional associations, guideline developers, and other potential users of the evidence report (four reviewers). Category 3 was assigned to public sector and quasi-public and regulatory agencies (three reviewers). Patient organizations and voluntary disease organizations were assigned to category 4 (one reviewer). We assigned organizations that appear to be engaged chiefly in information dissemination (clearinghouses and the like) to category 5 (quality-of-care and consumer groups) on the grounds that much quality-of-care activity today assumes some effort to provide consumer information (two reviewers). Purchasers and business coalitions (category 6) were defined broadly to include insurers as well (one reviewer). We believe that these six categories represent the full range of health care experts, users, and patient groups that should be involved in reviewing this particular evidence report on pharmacotherapies of alcohol dependence; the specific peer reviewers are listed at the end of this appendix.

We selected 25 organizations or independent peer reviewers from the six categories described above. The individuals included the eight members of the TEAG because they played a major role throughout the project in conceptualizing the work and reviewing materials; moreover, as active professionals in the field of alcohol treatment, we believed that their comments at this stage would be very valuable. The remaining peer reviewers were identified by issuing an invitation to the organization's executive officer/director (e.g., president, CEO) or to a public sector agency head asking them to nominate a peer reviewer or by soliciting nominations from the TEAG. A preliminary (and longer) list of organizations, agencies, or individuals was submitted to the AHCPR Task Order Officer for this project for review, comment, and approval. We then contacted all potential peer reviewers to determine their willingness to serve as peer reviewers, alerting them to the fact that this service would require them to prepare formal written reviews according to the checklist developed for this evidence report. Their comments and suggestions formed the basis of our revisions to the evidence report.

The peer reviewers who were selected for this evidence report are predominantly involved in clinical practice or research, representatives of professional associations whose clinicians specialize in alcoholism treatment, and representatives of public-sector quality-of-care organizations. Owing to the sensitive nature of this topic and the controversy surrounding the issue of treatment modalities (e.g., pharmaco-therapy vs. counseling), we were unable to enlist peer reviewers from some well-known organizations (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous).

We received comments from all but three reviewers contacted; those contributing to this effort are listed at the end of this appendix. We very much appreciate their thoughtful critiques and suggestions for improvements to this report.