ReviewCannabis and cannabinoid research2016
Maintenance of Blinding in Clinical Trials and the Implications for Studying Analgesia Using Cannabinoids.
Review in Cannabis and cannabinoid research, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 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
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Baclofen for alcohol use disorder.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Baclofen for alcohol use disorder.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Trial
- Cognitive effects, pharmacokinetics, and safety of zuranolone administered alone or with alprazolam or ethanol in healthy adults in a phase 1 trial.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2024Trial
- Trial
- A pilot study of dronabinol for the treatment of pain in sickle cell disease.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2025Article
- The Development of Cannabinoids as Therapeutic Agents in the United States.Pharmacological reviews · 2024Review
- Psilocybin for Depression: From Credibility to Feasibility, What's Missing?Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Great Expectations: recommendations for improving the methodological rigor of psychedelic clinical trials.Psychopharmacology · 2022Review
- Article
- Understanding the evidence for medical cannabis and cannabis-based medicines for the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2019Review
- Sample size calculations for blinding assessment.Journal of biopharmaceutical statistics · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The design of analgesic clinical trials invariably involves a comparison between placebo and active study medication. An assumption is made that treatment effects can be approximated by subtracting the response to placebo from that attained with the use of active study medication. However, the psychoactivity of cannabinoids may unmask their presence and lead to an expectation and/or conditioning of pain relief. For example, study participants biased toward the belief that cannabis is beneficial for their condition might be more inclined to report positive effects if they were to accurately identify the active treatment because of its psychoactivity. This may lead to incorrect assumptions regarding the efficacy of a cannabinoid. Methodologies designed to counteract unmasking need to be implemented in the design phase of a study. During the clinical trial, it is also important to query participants as to which treatment they believe they have received. Blinding can be considered to be preserved when the accuracy of treatment guesses is not considerably different than random guessing, which is estimated to be correct 50% of the time. After a study has been completed, the use of statistical methodologies such as regression and mediation analysis are worthy of consideration to see whether psychoactive effects biased the results.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.