Rapid Responses from bmj.com

doi:10.1136/bmjusa.02100008

BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmjusa.02100008, (Published 26 January 2003)

Letters

Rapid Responses from bmj.com

The use of masking procedures

Separating results and conclusions

Authors' response

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

From BMJ USA 2002;October:570

As of September 19, 2002, this article had generated 8 Rapid Responses, which can be read in their entirety at http://bmj.com/cgi/eletters/325/7358/249.Edited excerpts of two responses, and the author's reply, arepresented here. $---$ Editor

The use of masking procedures

EDITOR $---$ Although there seems to be good agreement in this study between raters' assessment of authors' conclusions on a 6-pointscale, there is enough variation and subjectivity in this assessmentfor bias to be a serious concern. At the very least, assessmentsof authors' conclusions should be made without knowledge of thesource of funding, and assessment of the source of funding shouldbe made without knowledge of the authors'conclusions.

The procedures for masking or blinding in this investigation do not meet this standard. One investigator assessed both sourceof funding and authors' conclusions without any masking. The secondinvestigator assessed authors' conclusions without knowledge ofthe source of funding. Unfortunately, the . . . [Full text of this article]