Checklist for allocation

This checklist has been contributed by Dave Sackett, who prepared it for the forthcoming 3rd edition of Clinical Epidemiology; A Basic Science for Answering Questions about Health Care, to be published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins in 2005.

• Double-check your system for registering and keeping track of every eligible consenting patient as soon as they are identified.
• Set up a system for obtaining prognostic information about them if necessary.
• Select an allocation method (stratified randomized blocks, minimization, factorial etc)
  
• Select some person or team to implement the allocation. 
• Set up safeguards to establish allocation concealment at the start of the trial. 
• If a blind randomized controlled trial, set up systems to maintain allocation concealment throughout the trial.
  

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This document was last updated on 19th October 2004.