Ansseau 1994.

Methods	Six‐week double blind, multicentre, randomised study.
Participants	Psychiatric in‐ and outpatients meeting DSM‐III‐R for major depressive episode, with a minimum baseline score of 18 on the HRSD‐21. Age range: 18‐65 years old. Exclusion criteria: clinically significant co‐existing diseases or other psychiatric disorders, history of alcohol or drug abuse, women of child bearing potential not employing adequate contraception, recent treatment with monoamine oxidase inhibitors, neuroleptics, or lithium, and current treatment with oral anticoagulants and type 1C antiarrythmic.
Interventions	Fluvoxamine: 64 participants. Paroxetine: 56 participants. Fluvoxamine dose range: 50‐200 mg/day. Paroxetine dose range: 20‐30 mg/day. For patients who had received benzodiazepines for at least two weeks prior to continue these agents, providing the dose remained unchanged throughout the study period. In addition, low dose lormethazepam or chloral hydrate were permitted in case of severe insomnia.
Outcomes	HRSD‐21, CGI‐S, Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HRSA). Total dropout, dropout due to inefficiency, dropout due to side effects, number of patients experiencing at least one side effect, side effect profile.
Funded by pharmaceutical companies	Funded by pharmaceutical company markets comparator drug.
Fluvoxamine as an investigational or comparator drug	Unclear.
Notes	Patients with major depressive episode (DSM‐III‐R) were included, so there might be some bipolar depression, but correct number was not reported.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Quote: "randomly assigned", no further details.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Quote: "the trial used a double‐blind design", no further details.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	Study endpoint: 23/64 missing from fluvoxamine group (5 due to lack of efficacy, 13 due to adverse effects); 16/56 missing from control group (2 due to lack of efficacy, 3 due to adverse effects).
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	SDs of change score for depression were not reported.