The Journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume
-
J Bone Joint Surg Am · Mar 2007
ReviewReporting of outcomes in orthopaedic randomized trials: does blinding of outcome assessors matter?
Randomization, concealment of treatment allocation, and blinding are all known to limit bias in clinical research. Nonsurgical studies that fail to meet these standards have been reported to inflate the differences between treatment and control groups. While surgical trials can rarely blind surgeons or patients, they can often blind outcome assessors. The aim of this systematic review was threefold: (1) to examine the reporting of outcome measures in orthopaedic trials, (2) to determine the feasibility of blinding in published orthopaedic trials, and (3) to examine the association between the magnitude of treatment differences and the blinding of outcome assessors. ⋯ In future orthopaedic randomized controlled trials, emphasis should be placed on detailed reporting of outcome measures to facilitate generalization and the outcome assessors should be blinded, when possible, to limit bias.