Table 3.

Reporting practices in reports of 40 partially clustered trials.

Convenience sample of partially clustered trials	Number of reports
Trial type
Individual randomisation with post-randomisation clustering	11
Group-based treatment designs	9
Facilitator effect designs	2
Individual randomisation within pre-existing clusters	13
Re-randomisation designs	11
Other designs	2
Cluster randomisation of pre-existing clusters	11
Balanced randomisation within pre-existing clusters	5
Report type a
Protocol paper	10
Primary results	30
Trial design reporting practices
‘Partial clustering’ or ‘partial nesting’ used in the main description of the trial design	7
Partial clustering inferred from the Methods section	32
Design sub-section	3
Participants/inclusion criteria sub-section	3
Intervention sub-section	7
Randomisation sub-section	8
Otherb	11
Partial clustering inferred from the results	1

^aProtocol papers were included if a publication of the primary trial results could not be identified. The list of included reports is included in the Supplemental Material (Appendix 2).

^b‘Other’ includes combined sub-sections such as ‘participants and allocation’ and Methods sections without any sub-sections.