ReviewF1000Research2017
Blinding in trials of interventional procedures is possible and worthwhile.
Review in F1000Research, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 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
15 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Patient, Physician, and Assessor Blinding in Phase III Randomized Trials in Oncology: A Meta-Epidemiological Analysis.Cancer medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Reporting of key methodological issues in placebo-controlled trials of surgery needs improvement: a systematic review.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2020Pooled it
- Virtual Reality-Based Intervention to Reduce Preoperative Anxiety in Adults Undergoing Elective Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2023Trial
- Evaluation of Long-Term Outcomes of Enamel Matrix Derivative in the Treatment of Peri-Implant Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Navigating blinding challenges in complex intervention trials: insights from a UK researcher survey.Trials · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of an Interactive School-Based Oral Health Educational Program on Periodontal Status Among Palestinian Adolescents: An Intervention Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Effects of a home-based aromatherapy programme for the management of behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia among older persons with dementia: A randomised controlled trial with process evaluation.Integrative medicine research · 2025Article
- Large simple randomized controlled trials-from drugs to medical devices: lessons from recent experience.Trials · 2025Review
- Research designs for cardiothoracic surgeons: part 1 - a primer for evidence-based practice.Indian journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Blinding in Clinical Trials: Seeing the Big Picture.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2021Review
- The American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) Practical Guidelines to Study Design and Scientific Manuscript Preparation in Neuromodulation.Journal of pain research · 2021Review
- Optimizing the design of invasive placebo interventions in randomized controlled trials.The British journal of surgery · 2020Article
- Article
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
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In this paper, we use evidence from our earlier review of surgical randomised controlled trials with a placebo arm to show that blinding in trials of interventional procedures is feasible. We give examples of ingenious strategies that have been used to simulate the active procedure and to make the placebo control indistinguishable from the active treatment. We discuss why it is important to blind of patients, assessors, and caregivers and what types of bias that may occur in interventional trials. Finally, we describe the benefits of blinding, from the obvious ones such as avoiding bias, as well as less evident benefits such as avoiding patient drop out in the control arm.
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.