What Is a High-Quality Randomized Controlled Trial?

The editors highlight critical areas of scientific study design and potential bias which reduce the quality of randomized controlled clinical trial research. They discuss the importance of implementing risk stratification of known predictors of outcome prior to randomization of study subjects, the need for a placebo effect group, relevance of blinding or masking to reducing subjective confounding biases, and challenges in overcoming bias due to conflict of interest.