Rutherford 2001.

Methods	RCT; Unit of allocation: Patient‐GP dyad.
Participants	Patients admitted to the hospital for major surgery and having a GP or agreeing to be referred to a GP in living area. Setting / country: Royal Women's Hospital oncology unit / Australia Type of cancer: Endometrial, cervical / ovarian Phase of care: Discharge, surveillance Sample size at randomisation: 200
Interventions	Increased general practitioners (GPs) contacts with hospital: GPs were invited to contact patients in the hospital by either personal visit or telephone call, to assist with discharge planning and continuity of care. Payment was available for visiting (150 AUSD) or telephoning (75 AUSD). Discharge summary (DS) for the patient: The discharge summary was collated by the research nurse  and comprised diagnosis and management plans with input from allied health, information on the specific gynaecological cancer for each patient, educational materials on chemotherapy and radiotherapy. It was either given to the patient on her discharge or mailed to her 1‐2 days after discharge. Combination studied included: (1) GPs not invited + DS (2) GPs invited + DS (3) GPs invited + No DS Control: Routine hospital discharge summary without any invitation to contact the hospital and no reception of cancer specific discharge summary.
Outcomes	Process: Number of GP contacts during admission to hospital and after discharge
Notes	Length of follow‐up: 10 months
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "She (the study nurse) then contacted an independent third party who allocated the patient to one of four groups using a randomisation schedule supplied by the statistical consultant."
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	See quote first item.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Satisfaction	High risk
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Use of services	Low risk
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Quote: "Contact was successfully made with 94 of 100 GPs: 47% on the first call, 42% on the second call and 10 % on the third call." Comment: Proportions of patient attrition were important but differed only slightly between treatment groups, with 40% attrition in ‐C+DS group, 52% in ‐C‐DS group, 32% in +C+DS group and 30% in +C‐DS group. Reasons for not responding to mailed survey were not detailed. The quote above indicates some GP attrition as well but no details were provided on which group it was in.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes described in Methods are reported in Results.
Other bias	High risk	Quote: "An important unforeseen finding was the large number of patients referred to the RWH from rural areas: 52% of GPs were more than 21 km and/or more  than 30 minutes travel time from the hospital. This halved the number of GPs who were in a position to provide a hospital visit, and consequently reduced the statistical power of the study" Comment: Since one of the primary outcome was the number of GPs responding to the invitation, then the proximity of the GP becomes an important confounding variable and the samples should at least have been stratified accordingly.
Baseline outcomes similar?	Unclear risk	NO: Patient confidence in GP management of future problems; Patient satisfaction; GP confidence in management of patients' future problems. They were not reported at baseline. YES: Number of GPs responding to invitation to visit the hospital; Rate of GP hospital visit; Rates of GP telephone calls; Rate of patient contact with GPs after discharge (all objective outcomes). They cannot be measured at baseline.
Baseline characteristics similar?	Low risk	Quote: "There were no significant differences between patients in the four study groups in age or rate of cancer diagnosis." "No significant differences between GPs in the four study groups in age, sex, years post‐graduation, practice size and sessions worked were found." Comment: There are not many baseline patient characteristics presented. The GP characteristics are well‐detailed.
Protected against contamination?	High risk	Comment: Patient was the unit randomised, and the intervention affected the patient and his/her GP. All patients were recruited in the same hospital. No details on the possibility that the same GP could follow patients from different study groups.