Blinding is a technique used to prevent bias in RCTs by ensuring that participants, researchers, and sometimes even those analyzing the data, do not know which group the participants are in. There are different levels of blinding:
Single-blind: Only the participants are unaware of their group assignment. Double-blind: Both participants and researchers are unaware of group assignments. Triple-blind: Participants, researchers, and analysts are all unaware of group assignments.
Blinding is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the study and ensuring that the results are not influenced by expectations or biases.
