Blocked Randomized Controlled Trial

A blocked randomized controlled trial (blocked RCT) uses permuted-block randomization to ensure that treatment groups remain balanced in size — and optionally in key characteristics — throughout recruitment. Within each block of fixed or randomly varied size, all treatment allocations are present in equal numbers, so imbalance cannot accumulate even if the trial is stopped early. This makes blocked RCTs the standard randomization approach in clinical and behavioral intervention research.