Mostly about Clinical Trials

Abstract

A randomized clinical trial is a prospective experiment to compare one or more interventions against a control group in order to determine the effectiveness of the interventions. A clinical trial may compare the value of a drug versus a placebo. A placebo is an inert substance that looks like the drug being tested. It may compare a new therapy with a currently standard therapy. It may compare surgical with medical intervention. It may also compare two methods of teaching reading, two methods of psychotherapy. The principles apply to any situation in which the issue of who is exposed to which condition is under the control of the experimenter and the method of assignment is through randomization.