(ANSWER BELOW QUESTION)
Hi Dr. Newman,
I was wondering if you can help to provide some clarification for question 5(a) on the final. I've copied and pasted it here:
5. Macitentan for pulmonary hypertension (with thanks to Mitchell Psotka)
From the abstract:
Methods (abbreviated): We randomly assigned patients with symptomatic pulmonary arterial hypertension to receive placebo once daily, macitentan at a once-daily dose of 3 mg, or macitentan at a once-daily dose of 10 mg. The primary end point was the time from the initiation of treatment to the first occurrence of a composite end point of death, lung transplantation, initiation of treatment with intravenous therapy, or worsening of pulmonary arterial hypertension.
(a) Based on what you know so far, at the very least who is blinded in this study? [1]
Can you help to clarify whether the question is asking what is the minimal blinding (including no blinding) with the information strictly provided, or what we think should be the minimal blinding for this RCT?
Thanks in advance for your time and help!
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This is not meant to be tricky (or even very challenging). You don't need to look up the original article. One aspect of the study would (if done successfully) ensure that at least some of those involved with the study are blinded (otherwise it would be pointless). Does that help?