Measuring the success of blinding in placebo-controlled trials: should we be so quick to dismiss it?

From being almost universally regarded as a methodological virtue of clinical trials and being included in the original 2001 Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement [1], measuring the success of blinding has fallen out of fashion. Subsequent versions of CONSORT removed this recommendation based on the correct view that it can lead to misleading inferences about causes of the failure to blind [2,3]. In addition, Anand, et al.[4] recently questioned the need to blind patients and clinicians or measure and report whether blinding was done successfully.

Source: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology - February 28, 2021 Category: Epidemiology Authors: Rebecca K Webster, Felicity Bishop, Gary S Collins, Andrea WM Evers, Tammy Hoffmann, J. Andr é Knottnerus, Sarah E Lamb, Helen Macdonald, Claire Madigan, Vitaly Napadow, Amy Price, Jonathan L Rees, Jeremy Howick Source Type: research