Goto 2007.
| Methods | Double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, natural colds | |
| Participants | 174 adults, age 18 to 65 years, 35% women, 23 outpatients facilities, URTI onset 2 days or less | |
| Interventions | Loxoprofen 60 mg 2 times for 7 days | |
| Outcomes | Duration of illness; the number of days with limited daily activities was not significantly different between groups | |
| Notes | The primary outcome was duration of illness in days | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | Low risk | "Randomisation was based on simple computer‐generated random digits" Comment: probably done |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Low risk | "... self‐drawing a sealed opaque envelope in the physician's sight....the correspondence between the digits and the group assignment was held in the central, secured location by a third party independent of the investigators until data collection was completed. Thus, allocation was concealed and masked from both patients and physicians" Comment: probably done |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes | Low risk | "A double‐blind, randomised, placebo‐controlled trial"; "those in the control group were to take a placebo which was quite similar to active loxoprofen in shape and taste" Comment: probably done |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | Low risk | "... six (two in loxoprofen group and four in placebo group) withdrew from the study, because two patients (one in loxoprofen and another in placebo) did not complete the diary; three patients (one in loxoprofen and the others in placebo) did not return the diary; and one patient (placebo) decided not to continue the study after the allocation. We excluded nine more participants (two in loxoprofen and seven in placebo) from analyses" Comment: probably done (missing outcome data balanced in numbers across intervention groups, with similar reasons for missing data across groups) |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | Unclear risk | No protocol, no convincing text |
| Other bias | Low risk | The study appears to be free of other sources of bias |