Investigating the effect of independent, blinded digital image assessment on the STOP GAP trial

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Emily Patsko ; Peter J. Godolphin ; Kim S. Thomas ; Trish Hepburn…
• 关键词：Adjudication ; Outcome assessment ; Blinding ; Digital photographs ; Digital images ; Randomised controlled trial ; Clinical trials ; Pyoderma gangrenosum
• 刊名：Trials
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：December 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：18
• 期：1
• 全文大小：733KB
• 刊物主题：Medicine/Public Health, general; Biomedicine, general; Statistics for Life Sciences, Medicine, Health Sciences;
• 出版者：BioMed Central
• ISSN：1745-6215
• 卷排序：18

文摘

BackgroundBlinding is the process of keeping treatment assignment hidden and is used to minimise the possibility of bias. Trials at high risk of bias have been shown to report larger treatment effects than low-risk studies. In dermatology, one popular method of blinding is to have independent outcome assessors who are unaware of treatment allocation assessing the endpoint using digital photographs. However, this can be complex, expensive and time-consuming. The objective of this study was to compare the effect of blinded and unblinded outcome assessment on the results of the STOP GAP trial.