Terms used in therapeutics
Allocation concealed: deemed to have taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial.
Allocation not concealed: deemed to have not taken adequate measures to conceal allocation to study group assignments from those responsible for assessing patients for entry in the trial.
Unclear allocation concealment: the authors of the article did not report or provide us with a description of an allocation concealment approach that allowed for the classification as concealed or not concealed.
Blinded: the clinicians, patients/participants, outcome assessors and/or statisticians were unaware of who received which study intervention. Those blinded are indicated in parenthesis. If “initially” is indicated (eg, …blinded [patients and outcome assessor initially]…) the code was broken during the trial, for instance, because of adverse effects.
Blinded (unclear): the authors did not report or provide us with an…