Sham interventions in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of physical, psychological, and self-
management (PPS) therapies for pain are highly variable in design and believed to …

Suboptimal diet is recognized as a leading modifiable risk factor for non-communicable
diseases. Non-randomized studies (NRSs) with patient relevant outcomes provide many …

Background To our knowledge, there are no trials comparing emollients commonly used for
childhood eczema. We aimed to compare the clinical effectiveness and safety of the four …

Blinding mitigates several sources of bias which, if left unchecked, can quantitively affect
study outcomes. Blinding remains under-utilized, particularly in non-pharmaceutical clinical …

Background The magnitude of placebo effects from physical and psychological 'sham'is
unknown but could impact efficacy trials and treatment understanding. To quantify placebo …

OBJECTIVES: To investigate whether intervention effect estimates for mortality differ
between blinded and nonblinded randomized controlled trials conducted in critical care. We …

Control interventions (often called “sham,”“placebo,” or “attention controls”) are essential for
studying the efficacy or mechanism of physical, psychological, and self-management …

Background The evidence for whether ivermectin impacts recovery, hospital admissions,
and longer-term outcomes in COVID-19 is contested. The WHO recommends its use only in …

Introduction: Numerous studies have shown that hypnotherapy (HT) is effective in irritable
bowel syndrome (IBS) using traditional symptom severity end points. However, there is now …

Background Blinding is an established approach in clinical trials which aims to minimise the
risk of performance and detection bias. There is little empirical evidence to guide UK clinical …