SynthesisPsychiatry research2014
Assessing blinding in trials of psychiatric disorders: a meta-analysis based on blinding index.
Synthesis in Psychiatry research, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Blinding, sham, and treatment effects in randomized controlled trials for back pain in 2000-2019: A review and meta-analytic approach.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Placebo Devices as Effective Control Methods in Acupuncture Clinical Trials: A Systematic Review.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Efficacy and safety of a 4-week course of repeated subcutaneous ketamine injections for treatment-resistant depression (KADS study): randomised double-blind active-controlled trial.The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2023Trial
- Not All Masks Are Created Equal: Masking Success in Clinical Trials of Children and Adolescents.Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53 · 2019Trial
- From Efficacy to Effectiveness: Evaluating Psychedelic Randomized Controlled Trials for Trustworthy Evidence-Based Policy and Practice.Pharmacology research & perspectives · 2025Review
- Article
- Article
- Assessment of blinding in randomized controlled trials of antidepressants for depressive disorders 2000-2020: A systematic review and meta-analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2022Article
- Double-blinding of an acupuncture randomized controlled trial optimized with clinical translational science award resources.Clinical trials (London, England) · 2020Article
- Overdispersion models for correlated multinomial data: Applications to blinding assessment.Statistics in medicine · 2019Article
- How Placebo Needles Differ From Placebo Pills?Frontiers in psychiatry · 2018Review
- Sample size calculations for blinding assessment.Journal of biopharmaceutical statistics · 2018Article
- Article
- Random Guess and Wishful Thinking are the Best Blinding Scenarios.Contemporary clinical trials communications · 2016Article
- Maintenance of Blinding in Clinical Trials and the Implications for Studying Analgesia Using Cannabinoids.Cannabis and cannabinoid research · 2016Review
- Joint Estimation of Treatment and Placebo Effects in Clinical Trials with Longitudinal Blinding Assessments.Journal of the American Statistical Association · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The assessment of blinding in RCTs is rarely performed. Currently most studies that do report data on evaluation of blinding merely report percentages of correct guessing, not taking into account correct guessing by chance. Blinding assessment using the blinding index (BI) has never been performed in a systematic review on studies of major psychiatric disorders. This study is a systematic review of psychiatric randomized control trials using the BI as a chance-corrected measurement of blinding, a tool to analyze and understand the patterns of blinding across studies of major psychiatric disorders with available data. Of 2467 psychiatric RCTs from 2000 to 2010, 66 reported on blinding and 40 studies were found to have enough information on evaluation of blinding to be analyzed using the BI. The experimental treatment groups had an average BI value of 0.14 and the control groups had an average BI value of 0.00. The most common BI scenario was random-random, indicating ideal blinding. A positive correlation between effect size and more correct guesses was also found. Overall, based on BI values and the most common blinding scenario, the published articles on major psychiatric disorders from 2000 to 2010, which reported on blinding assessment for patients, were effectively blinded.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.