Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING STUDIES
Volume 48, Issue 5, Pages 636-641Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2011.02.010
Keywords
Bias; Blinding; CONSORT guidelines; Data analysis; Randomized controlled trials
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Blinding in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is a strategy that is widely endorsed as a method of reducing the biases that can result from people's awareness of study participants' treatment group status. Blinding of participants and interventionists is often impossible in nursing RCTs, but data analysts can almost always be blinded. Yet, such blinding seldom occurs, perhaps because of misperceptions about the objectivity of statistical analysis. Data analysts make many semi-subjective decisions about such issues as handling missing data, transforming variables, undertaking subgroup analysis, and selecting covariates. These decisions ideally should be made without the analyst's knowledge of how treatment groups are coded. Strategies for achieving blinding among data analysts are discussed. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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