Using instrumental variables to disentangle treatment and placebo effects in blinded and unblinded randomized clinical trials influenced by unmeasured confounders

Clinical trials traditionally employ blinding as a design mechanism to reduce the influence of placebo effects. In practice, however, it can be difficult or impossible to blind study participants and unblinded trials are common in medical research. Here we show how instrumental variables can be used...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chaibub Neto, Elias
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116680/