As part of a doctorate on the placebo effect in clinical trials, I am
looking at the effects of 'unblinding' or telling patients about the arm
they were in at the end of the study.
I am trying to find out whether there is a standard procedure (e.g.
ethical) for informing the participants of double-blind
placebo-controlled RCTs about the treatment arm that was allocated to
them - at trial closure.
Also, whether there are any study which have followed up patients once
the placebo treatment allocation was revealed to them.
Any comments/suggestions would be really helpful.
Zelda
***
Zelda Di Blasi, MPsychSc.
Research Fellow & DPhil student,
Department of Health Sciences and Clinical Evaluation &
NHS Centre for Reviews and Dissemination,
University of York
YORK YO10 5DD
UK
Tel. 01904-434519/434575
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|