Look at the picture. As well as the drug, what does a double-blind trial involve giving to patients?

Look at the picture. Volunteers taking part in early clinical trials should be... what?

From the key study by Grant et al. (2008) on treating gambling disorder with drugs and placebo:(a) Explain what is meant by a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial as used in this study. [4](b) Suggest one effect if a double-blind trial had not been used in this study. [2](c) Explain two strengths of conducting placebo-controlled trials in studies of gambling disorder.[4

To study the efficacy of a specific treatment for a particular psychiatric disorder, researchers will often employ a double-blind, placebo-controlled experiment. A double-blind study means that neither the participants nor the researchers know which participants are receiving the placebo, and which participants are receiving the treatment. These studies are designed to compare the results of the introduced treatment with that of a placebo on two groups of randomly selected patients.In the field of psychiatric drug development – also known as psychopharmacological drug development – placebo studies pose a significant problem in that they often result in negative findings. These are trials in which researchers have failed to demonstrate the superiority of the treatment over the placebo condition, and therefore pose a range of issues surrounding the validity of clinical drug development trials. The larger the placebo response, the more difficult it is to prove that an experimental treatment is effective.Describe what is meant by the term ‘placebo problem’ and explain how this can be problematic for psychopharmacological drug developers.

In a recent study to establish the effectiveness of a new cancer drug, subjects were randomly divided into three groups. Group A got a known and effective cancer drug, group B got the new experimental compound, and group C got a combination of the two drugs. None of the individuals nor the nurses knew group assignments, and nurses administering the drugs did not know what drug was being administered to their patients.Which of the following is a correct statement about this study? It was a blind study because subjects did not know the treatment they were receiving. It was a double-blind study because neither the subject nor the experimenter knew what the treatment for a patient was. It was not a blind study because there was no placebo. It was not a blind study because patients knew they were participating in a study.

-blind studies are those in which neither the participants nor the researchers (at least the ones administering the treatment) know who has been assigned to the experimental or control group.