Table 2.

Summary of items reported in an article that will be extracted

Category	Extracted data
Study characteristics	• Title
	• First author name(s)
	• Publication year
	• Funding source
	• Journal
	• Trial type
Subject matter	• Setting
	• Medical condition studied
	• Medical specialty studied
Design	• Ordinal outcome type
	• Number of categories in the outcome
	• Whether the ordinal outcome was measured at a single time point or as a measure of change
	• Whether the categories of the ordinal scale were clearly defined, ordered, mutually exclusive and, if a measure of change, symmetrical
	• Whether the ordinal outcome was a primary or secondary outcome
	• Whether sample size determination was used based off the ordinal outcome
	• Number of study participants included in the analysis (largest if multiple analyses)
Statistical methods	• The statistical model(s) or method(s) that were used to analyse the ordinal outcome
	• Type of inference used (frequentist/Bayesian)
	• Target parameter used
	• How the distribution of the ordinal outcome was summarised by intervention
	• Methods used to account for repeated measures over time (if applicable)
	• Details on whether the model assumptions were reported
	• Whether the analysis that was reported in the results differed from the analysis
	outlined in the methods section of the manuscript
Software included	• Statistical software package used for the analysis