Double-blind Study

A double-blind drug treatment study is a study where there are two groups, one of which is administered a placebo and the other the treatment being studied. Neither the people conducting the study nor the participants know which group they are in. The reason neither the participants nor the conductors know who is administered the treatment is to remove any sort of bias. As a participant the placebo method only works if they think there's a chance they've been given the drug, so if it the placebo effect causing the patients to get better it will be clear in the results as both groups (majority or similar ratio) will recover. However if only the patients given the treatment recover it is assumed that the treatment biologically aids in the process of recovery. On the other hand a researcher conducting the study may look for and credit insufficient changes and or evidence to the treatment group and disregard any evidence in the placebo group (consciously or unconsciously) in an attempt to prove the treatments effectiveness.