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How to spot bias and other potential problems in randomised controlled trials

¹ Neurosciences Trials Unit, Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK
² Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Steff C Lewis
Neurosciences Trials Unit, Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Crewe Road, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, UK; steff.lewis@ed.ac.uk

Received 19 August 2003
In final revised form 24 November 2003

Accepted for publication 24 November 2003

Keywords: randomised controlled trials; bias

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

These days, all clinical trials should be reported using the CONSORT guidelines¹ (table 1); indeed JNNP recommends this in its instructions for authors. However, not all trials are reported in this way, and many journals do not insist on it. Thus some trials may have been carried out adequately but reported inadequately, while others have been carried out inadequately. Our aim in this article is to guide clinicians in what to look for in a report of a randomised controlled trial (RCT), so they can assess whether the trial was done adequately; we do not intend it to be a guide on how to do an RCT, as there are many such guides available.²

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