Blinding is an empirical process used in randomized controlled trials to reduce observation bias. Blinding means that study participants, research staff, and/or clinicians do not know whether the treatment or control is being given in the empirical setting.
The use of blinding strengthens the internal validity of a randomized controlled trial by ensuring that study participants are treated in a salient fashion, regardless of group assignment. Blinding assists in deterring well-documented research phenomena that introduce observation bias into randomized controlled trials like the Hawthorne effect, the Halo effect, diffusion of treatment, compensatory rivalry, and biased statistical analysis.
A randomized controlled trial can be single-blinded (study participants are blinded), double-blinded (study participants and research staff), or triple-blinded (study participants, research staff, and lead researchers and clinicians).
A randomized controlled trial can be single-blinded (study participants are blinded), double-blinded (study participants and research staff), or triple-blinded (study participants, research staff, and lead researchers and clinicians).
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