Clinical trials and studies

International standards and resources

The Cochrane Collaboration has published a glossary of terms used in clinical trials.

Australian conventions and resources

Australia follows international terminology for clinical research.

Clinical trial phases

Clinical trials are run in phases. Use roman numerals to refer to the phases I, II, III and IV. If there are subphases, indicate them by an unspaced lower-case letter:

phase Ia     phase IIb

Participants

Refer to people taking part in a clinical trial as participants rather than patients, and never subjects (which implies lack of consent by the person taking part).

Word styles

Use lower case for technical terms except for proper nouns (eg types of clinical trials and studies), even if the abbreviation consists of capitals.

randomised controlled trial (RCT)     cohort study     case–control study

See also Statistics.

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