Patients' understanding of randomised controlled trials depends on their education

BMJ 1999;318:875 ( 27 March )

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Patients' understanding of randomised controlled trials depends on their education

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EDITOR $---$ We appreciated Featherstone and Donovan's report about patients' perspectives of participation in a randomised controlledtrial.¹ We recently investigated the ability of 40 middle agedand elderly caregivers to understand and retain information aboutrandomised controlled trials in patients with Alzheimer'sdisease.

Eighteen caregivers were men and 22 women, and their mean age was 64 (SD 6) (range 50-76). They had had a mean of 6 (3) yearsof schooling (range 5-17), and their mean score in the minimentalstate examination was 29 (1) (range 25-30). They were given informationin a semistructured manner, including information sheets. Twentyeight of them could not explain why placebo, randomisation, anddouble blind procedures were used. Furthermore, eight of themcould not recall anything other than a vague idea of participationin an "experiment" and the possible use of a placebo for someunknown reason. Using a four step scale to rate competency toparticipate in . . . [Full text of this article]

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Random allocation or allocation at random? Patients' perspectives of participation in a randomised controlled trial: Katie Featherstone and Jenny L Donovan
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