Am J Psychiatry 1992; 149:1730-1731
Copyright © 1992 by American Psychiatric Association
Side effects and the "blindability" of clinical drug trials
K White, J Kando, T Park, C Waternaux and WA Brown
Department of Psychiatry, Providence VA Medical Center, RI 02908.
A novel, simple approach to retrospective assessment of "blindability" was
applied to data on outpatients in a controlled, double-blind clinical
comparison of a putative antidepressant, etoperidone, and placebo. A
"blind" evaluator proved capable of discriminating between the active drug
and placebo on the basis of reported side effects alone, raising questions
about the true blindness of the study.
