Doctors and participants are kept unaware of which treatment is being given as part of a double-blind study. It eliminates the possibility that researchers will tip off participants unintentionally, or may subconsciously bias their evaluation of the results. It is intended to eliminate the power of suggestion with this kind of study. New drugs, for example, are the subject of research that aims to determine their effects. When researchers interact with participants in a double-blind study, they cannot distinguish between participants who receive drugs and those who receive placebos.
A double-blind study is a randomized clinical trial in which neither you, the patient, nor your doctor knows whether you are receiving the experimental, standard, or placebo. When doctors assess the results of their patients, bias is avoided by double-blind investigations. I think this is important to know as a patient. As a result, clinical trial outcomes have increased reliability. Your doctor may "unblind" you if you experience health issues during a trial, such as a potential drug reaction, to reveal the treatment you are receiving. Ultimately, everyone would profit from the double-blind study's more accurate conclusions and prevention of that occurrence.
In a double-blind trial, neither the volunteers nor the researchers are aware of who is receiving a particular therapy. This process is beneficial because it stops bias from developing in the outcomes reported. It is most often used when it is necessary to weigh the advantages of demand characteristics against the placebo effect. When doctors assess the results of their patients, bias is avoided by double blind trials. As a result, clinical trial outcomes have greater validity. It can also be a method of monitoring the development of negative side effects of the drug being researched.
@akashranpura This is true doubled blinding the studies does help to eliminate bias during the trial especially with drug trials. Typically, the clinicians are pressured to show particular positive results and this is where the real issue occurs. I find that many of the drugs that have gone through double blind trials still seem to show many adverse effects. I often wonder is this because the patients didn't report these symptoms or did the clinicians purposely omit that data. I do believe that double blind studies are the best protocol that we have as of now; however, I wholeheartedly believe there is much improvements that need to be included to make this process more ethical in the handling of results.
@jdfoster01 I agree with you on the double blind protocol and it being the gold standard of Clinical Research today. I'm curious how the triple blind studies compare to the double blind trials. I wonder if the validity of the trial depends primarily on who's funding the trial and who is capturing and analyzing the data from the results.
My question is should there be a mandatory triple blinding for each Drug trial?
Conducting a blind study helps to dispel the bias in a study. Whether intentional or unintentional bias affects the integrity of a study. Removing this aspect will allow for more accurate results. To make the impacts of bias even less significant I believe that the more blindness added to the study the better.
It is the opinion of the writer that conducting a double- blind study has many benefits. Firstly, double blinded studies prevent the idea of bias occurring throughout the study. In other words, if neither the doctor/researcher or the patient who is receiving the treatment is aware of what they are receiving this could potentially prevent either individual from being able to predict the outcome of the trial. Additionally, double-blind research studies could potentially provide applicable duplication of results. This allows other researchers to follow up with the same processes, apply the test item, and compare the result with the control group.
In a double study, the participants nor the researchers are aware of variables or controls. This study is great because it increases the reliability and validity of the study. It could also decrease the liabliity of the researchers in the event something going wrong. In a single blind study, the participants do not know which group they are in. This type of study works but it can cause issues if one or more of the participants were harmed in any way.
A double-blind study method can minimize the potential effects of research bias when collecting data. If a researcher isn’t careful, emotion can cause poor decision-making, which can cause biased results also. This issue often occurs when experimenters intentionally or non-intentionally influence the results of a study during information gathering or product administration. In my opinion this is a method used to uphold the integrity of the study.
people can act with biaswhen interpreting the results of their studies and make comments so that their results come out in the desired direction. therefore, double blind study will provide a more "objective" interpretation of the results of the studies. and for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118396/pdf/504.pdf also, as stated in this article, blind studies help to ensure the reliability of the results of the studies.
As per the responses from my peers it is more favorable to perform a double-blinded study over a single-blinded study in order to reduce intentional or inadvertent biases such as from the placebo effect, experimenter expectancy effect, and experimenter bias which ultimately improves the accuracy and reliability of the results produced. In the example provided, the purpose of also having the experimenter unaware of whether the drug they are providing to each subject is a placebo or the real deal minimizes the chance of accidentally revealing which drug the subject was provided since only those directing the study know the treatment each participant receives. The only advantage I can see to performing a single-blinded study over a double-blinded study is needing less people to coordinate the study - meaning cutting costs. Does anyone know any other advantages?
Double blind is better because it removes any possibility of bias when analyzing the results. For example if a doctor knows that a patient is getting treatment or not it might affect how he assesses them. It is just much safer to have both the patient and the doctors to not know in order to prevent any bias in the trial.
I cant really think Why is it needed to use double blind study since I think single blind i.e. only patient blind must work.In double blind both Investigator and patient will not know about the drug and doctor will have to identify who is given what which would lengthen the process of trial and I think if investigator knows it shouldn't affect the outcome of study
For example: If a research group is developing an Alzhimer's drug and they are in clinical phase how would it affect the investigator if he knows that a patient is given placibo or a drug to cure Alzhimer's.
Whats's your point in this and if you think double blind are better and you provide some example.
I agree that single-blind studies should not affect the outcome of the study. Since the doctor giving the drug or placebo in place of the drug will not be telling the patient what is what, there is no point in hiding it from the doctor. Also, the doctors may have some other ideas that they would want to share and can help the study if they know what is going on and what effects the research group is looking for. I don't see where double-blind studies should be used since there is no point in hiding it from the physicians since they will not be telling the patient if the drug is a placebo or not. So, single-blind studies are just enough to conduct the study with accurate results.
This is a topic I too thought about after listening to this weeks lectures. What is the point of not letting the doctor know what patient is getting the drug and what patients are getting the placebo. Multiple posts have said that the reason of a double-blind study is to reduce the biased of how the doctor or experimenter collects data, yet this did not sell me on why a double blind study is still better than a single-blind study. Data is data, results are results, how could knowing if someone is being treated change the facts of a patient's reaction to a drug? However, after doing some research and thinking more on the ethical side of clinical trials, a double-blind study avoids any deception during research. Anyone in healthcare has an obligation to help people. Therefore, having a doctor know they are not helping some one puts them in a difficult situation. To avoid this, the double-blind study avoids any violations of withholding information from a patient as a doctor. Overall, after reading more on the topic a double-blind study sounds much more ethical compared to a single-blind study.
A lot of studies have to deal with topics that may be controversial or at odds with some researchers & scientists. The reason these double and triple blind studies are conducted is to completely remove any bias or outside input from the equation. For truly robust study with results that are concrete, study coordinators must implement tricks like this. For example, a study about parenting styles would benefit from a triple blind analysis; this way, all bias is accounted for, from the patient to the analyst. It may seem redundant, but personal bias has often come in the way of science.
