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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Jan 1.
Published in final edited form as: Compr Psychiatry. 2012 Jul 13;54(1):28–33. doi: 10.1016/j.comppsych.2012.06.003

Table 1.

Study vignette for placebo-controlled drug study

Imagine you have been asked to be in a depression treatment study.
If you agree, you will be randomly chosen to get Drug A or placebo. A placebo is an inactive substance that does not contain medicine, like a sugar pill. We will test whether Drug X is better than placebo for treating depression.
You will have a 50-50 chance (like a coin flip) of getting either Drug X or placebo, but not both.
Both treatments may have certain risks (such as side effects) and benefits.
You will not be told which treatment you are receiving while in the study.
The study will last for 12 weeks, and you will have weekly meetings with a doctor.
The treatments will be provided to you free of charge.
At the end of the study, you will be told which treatment you received.

The other study vignettes described different conditions (drug A vs drug B or psychotherapy A vs psychotherapy B) but otherwise were identical in wording to the above (excluding the statement defining a placebo).