Blinding is the
process in a research study of hiding information about which treatment a
patient receives. Also see Category: Placebos in research. Other entries about blinding in research can be found in the
blinding in research page at the
StATS website.
2008
[[There is no material yet from my new site.]]
Outside resources:
- Blind Prejudice - "Hard"
scientists believe they are immune to bias. Description: This article
makes the claim that parapsychology is far more rigorous than other scientific
methods because their research papers use blinding far more often than other
disciplines. It includes a quote from Rupert Sheldrake Most hard scientists
take it for granted that blind techniques are unnecessary in their own field.
Parapsychologists, on the other hand, have been constantly subjected to
intense scrutiny by sceptics, and this has made them more rigorous." This
claim is overly simplistic in my opinion, because blinding is just one of many
dimensions of quality that need to be considered.
- Mooney M, et al, The blind spot in the nicotine replacement therapy
literature: Assessment of the doubleblind in clinical trials
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15135549 [PubMed abstract], Addict
Behav., 2004 June;29(4):67
All of the material above this paragraph is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by
Steve Simon and was last modified on
2010-04-11. The material
below this paragraph links to my
old website, StATS. Although I wrote all of the material
listed below, my ex-employer, Children's Mercy Hospital, has claimed copyright
ownership of this material. The brief excerpts shown here are included under
the fair use provisions of U.S. Copyright laws.
2008
2007
2006
2005
- Stats: Withholding information
(November 28, 2005). A recent query on the IRB Forum asked about a pilot
study. The goal of the pilot study was to see if different ways of presenting
the materials would lead to an improvement in the response rate among
participants. The researchers wanted to withhold information about the purpose
of the pilot study from the participants because it might bias their response.
The writer of the query was a member of the IRB that wanted some comments
about whether it is okay to withhold this information and if patients should
be told if they are participating in the pilot phase of the research.
2004
- Stats: Unblinding at the end of a
study (November 1, 2004). When a study a placebo controlled study is
completed, patients in both arms of the study are often offered the active
drug at the end of the study at no cost as a way of thanking them for their
participation. But some researchers want to continue to measure long term
outcomes (outcomes that extend beyond the placebo phase of the study), so they
will not reveal to the patients whether they received the active medication or
placebo. This raises some difficult ethical issues. Here are a few references
on this controversy that I saw on the IRBForum.
- Stats: Breaking the blind (July 29, 2004).
Someone asked an interesting question on the IRBForum today. Under what
circumstances should the blinding for a trial be broken when an unexpected
Serious Adverse Event (SAE) occurs?
What now?
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Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. This page was written by
Steve Simon and was last modified on
2010-04-11.
