Finding Types of Research

What is a Randomized Controlled Trial?

"A clinical trial in which the subjects are randomly distributed into groups which are either subjected to the experimental procedure (as use of a drug) or which serve as controls —called also randomized clinical trial."

Find Randomized Controlled Trials

You can narrow your search to randomized controlled trials only by adding a search term of randomized controlled trials to your search statement. Example: antihypertensives AND "blood pressure" AND "randomized controlled trial".

There are also filters in specific databases that allow you to limit your search results to randomized controlled trial articles only.

CINAHL and Medline: Publication Type Filter

Randomized Controlled Trial

To find randomized controlled trials in CINAHL or Medline, follow the steps below.

  1. Select one of the database links above to open the advanced search page.
  2. Enter your keyword(s) into the search boxes. 
  3. Move down to the Limit Your Results section. This is where you can add filters to your search to tell the database that you only want articles that fit specific criteria. 
  4. Select Randomized Controlled Trial from the Publication Type menu, as shown in the image below.

PubMed: Randomized Control Trial Filter

To find randomized controlled trials in PubMed, follow the steps below.

  1. Select the database link above.
  2. Enter your keyword(s) into the search box.
  3. Select Search.
  4. Select Randomized Controlled Trial from the Article Type section on the left-hand side of the page, as shown in the image below.

Note! With any of these searches, you will need to limit to full text to get articles immediately available to you.

Example of Randomized Controlled Trial