Physician interpretations and textbook definitions of blinding terminology in randomized controlled trials.

Top Cited Papers
Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
To assess the validity of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), clinicians should note whether participants, health care providers, data collectors, and those assessing occurrence of target events of interest (judicial assessors of outcomes) are blind to participant allocation to treatment or control.1,2 Some methodologists have suggested that allocation should also be concealed from data analysts and personnel writing the paper.3,4 Authors of RCTs frequently use the terms "single," "double," and "triple" blind to communicate the blinding status of persons involved in the trials. We suspected that physicians and textbooks vary in their interpretations and definitions of these terms. Therefore, we surveyed physicians and systematically reviewed textbooks to test this hypothesis. A review of 200 RCTs provided an estimate of the clarity with which investigators identify who is blinded in studies they describe as single-, double-, and triple-blind.