blinding

blinding,

n within a clinical trial, hiding the knowledge of a particular treatment. The three types of blinding are the following: observer-blind—when the researcher does not know the particular treatment that a patient undergoes; single-blind, when only the patient does not know to which group he or she belongs; and double-blind, when both the patient and the one providing the treatment do not know group identity. These types of blinding ensure—all other factors being identical—that any observed results are not the result of bias of the study participants.

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blinding

a condition imposed on a study which is intended to keep knowledge of the treatment assignment of individual patients from a specified set of observers. Used to reduce information bias. Single blind: the owner of the patient is unaware of the treatment assignment but the veterinarian is aware. Double blind: both the owner of the patient and the veterinarian are unaware of the treatment assignments of the patients. Triple blind: the owners of the patients, the veterinarian and the person analyzing the results of the study are all unaware of the treatment assignments. Called also masking.