A type of scientific experiment - a form of clinical research - most commonly used in testing the safety (or more specifically, information about adverse drug reactions and adverse effects of other treatments) and efficacy or effectiveness of healthcare services (such as medicine or nursing) or health technologies (such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices or surgery). Study subjects, after assessment of eligibility and recruitment, but before the intervention to be studied begins, are randomly allocated to receive one or other of the alternative treatments under study. Random allocation is complex, but conceptually, the process is like tossing a coin. After randomization, the two (or more) groups of subjects are followed up in exactly the same way, and the only differences between the care they receive, for example, in terms of procedures, tests, outpatient visits, follow-up calls, etc. should be those intrinsic to the treatments being compared. The most important advantage of proper randomization is that it minimizes allocation bias, balancing both known and unknown prognostic factors, in the assignment of treatments."
