Hoge 2012.

Methods	Design: randomised, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled pilot study Duration of intervention: an initial dose was given at the emergency department, followed by a 19‐day treatment course at home Follow‐up: 1 and 3 months Placebo run‐in: no
Participants	Sample size: 43 participants were randomised to propranolol and placebo Mean age: 33.5 (10.2) Gender: 18 males and 23 females were included in the study Ethnicity: data not provided Type of trauma: emergency department Diagnostic measure: DSM‐IV Inclusion criteria: Quote: "Participant candidates had to experience an event that met the DSM‐IV PTSD A.1 (stressor) and A.2 (response) criteria." "The initial eligibility criterion of an ED admission heart rate of 80 BPM or greater was done away with, and the requirement that the traumatic event occur no earlier than 4 h prior to first dose of study medication was extended to from 4 to 12 hours, due to recruitment difficulties" Exclusion criteria: Quote: "These included physical injury that would complicate participation, hospital stay longer than overnight (the great majority of participants were discharged from the ED the same day), head injury with loss of consciousness, a medical condition that contraindicated the administration of propranolol (e.g., asthma), use of medications with potentially dangerous interactions with propranolol, previous adverse reaction to a β‐blocker, blood alcohol concentration above 0.02% or presence of substances of abuse on saliva testing, pregnancy, traumatic event reflecting ongoing victimization, contraindicating psychiatric condition such as psychotic, bipolar, major depressive, or posttraumatic stress disorder from another event, suicidality or homicidality, unwillingness or inability to come to Boston for the research visits, or treating physician did not concur with enrollment in the study" Drop‐outs: 9 of 43 (20.9%). Group‐specific drop‐out rates were not provided Number of participants with MDD: 3/20 (15%) on placebo and 3/21 (14.3%) on propranolol
Interventions	Pharmacological intervention: Quote: "Following screening, each participant was randomized to receive an initial oral dose of either 40 mg short‐acting propranolol or placebo. One hour after this first dose, if systolic blood pressure had not fallen by 10 mmHg or more, or to below 100 mmHg, an additional oral dose of 60 mg long‐acting propranolol or placebo was given; all participants received both doses. Participants continued taking long‐acting propranolol (or placebo) at home over a 19‐day course, starting with 120 mg every morning and evening for 10 days, and then tapering to 120 mg in the morning and 60 mg in the evening for 3 days, then 60 mg in the morning and 60 mg the evening for 3 days, then 60 mg in the morning only ×3 days, after which the study medication was discontinued"
Outcomes	Primary outcomes: Physiological Reactivity, Peritraumatic Emotional Distress Inventory, Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) Secondary outcomes: not specified
Notes	Industry‐funded: no Medication provided by industry: no Any of the authors work for industry: no
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Information about generation of the randomisation sequence was not provided. Quote: "Following screening, each participant was randomized to receive an initial oral dose of either 40 mg short‐acting propranolol or placebo"
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	Lead author confirmed that "the research pharmacy makes up the active drug and placebo to look the same" (E. Hoge; personal correspondence: 26 November 2013)
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No description of blinding is provided in the study report, though the protocol for this study (NCT00158262) describes this study as "Double Blind (Subject, Investigator)". Lead author confirmed that "subjects, the psychologist who did the SCID, and the study nurses who had contact with patients, were all blinded to treatment allocation through the use of blinded medication" (E. Hoge; personal correspondence: 26 November 2013)
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No description of outcome assessment blinding is provided in the study report. Lead author confirmed that "subjects, the psychologist who did the SCID, and the study nurses who had contact with patients, were all blinded to treatment allocation through the use of blinded medication" (E. Hoge; personal correspondence: 26 November 2013)
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Proportion and characteristics of participants who dropped out by group is not described. Nevertheless, the total proportion of drop‐outs (20.9%) is relatively low, suggesting that drop‐out rates may not have biased the outcomes
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	The outcomes are not described in the study protocol available on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT00158262)
Other bias	Unclear risk	No other source of bias was identified for this study