International standards and resources
The Cochrane Collaboration has published a glossary of terms(Opens in a new tab/window) 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 (e.g. 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.