Table 2.

Quality assessment of included RCTs

Study (author, country, year)	Type of study	Base population	Randomisation	Blinding	Confounding	Losses to follow-up	Analysis
Ronnemaa, Finland, 199722	RCT	Community-based care in Finland, receiving antidiabetic drug treatment from the national drug reimbursement register	Randomisation performed separately for men/women and patients </> 20 years. Method of randomisation not described	Outcome assessor blinded to baseline characteristics but no further information on blinding provided	Baseline characteristics not described	Follow-up completed by 63% of patients in intervention group and 62% patients in control group at 7 years	No intention to treat analysis undertaken
Plank, Austria, 200323	RCT	All in routine outpatient care at hospital diabetic foot clinic in Austria	Subjects were assigned a patient number in ascending order and randomly allocated to the intervention or control group	Allocation concealment ensured	Similar baseline characteristics	All patients followed up	Intention to treat and per protocol analysis

RCT, randomised controlled trial.