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Blinding In Randomized Controlled Trials: What Researchers Need To Know?, Vishnu Renjith Mr

Manipal Journal of Nursing and Health Sciences

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is a classical research design, in which the participants are randomly allocated to one or other treatment conditions under the study. Researchers widely use randomized trials to evaluate the effectiveness of various pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. At the outset, randomization minimizes the bias in allocating subjects to the intervention and control group. However, it does not exclude the chances of differential treatment of groups or biased adjudication of outcome variables. Blinding helps in controlling various types of biases that might inadvertently sweep into the study. The two major biases that can be controlled using blinding are …