Lalit 2004.

Methods	Four‐week controlled, randomised, double‐blind study.
Participants	Outpatients, 18 to 65 years of age, with ICD‐10 diagnosis of Major Depressive Episode and a minimum score of 18 on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Patients were excluded if they had recent ongoing significant non‐psychiatric medical disorder, a history of substance abuse, chronic suicidal ideation and behaviour, participated in any drug trial within 4 weeks, schizoaffective or bipolar disorder, seizure disorder, anorexia nervosa, hepatic and renal system dysfunction, therapy with lithium within the preceding month, treatment with cimetidine, warfarin or MAO inhibitors, hypersensitivity to citalopram, escitalopram and sertraline and non responders to citalopram and sertraline. Women of childbearing age not using contraceptives, pregnant women, lactating mothers, women desiring to have children were also excluded.
Interventions	Citalopram: 74 participants. Escitalopram: 69 participants. Sertraline: 71 participants. Citalopram dose: 20‐40 mg/day. Escitalopram dose: 10‐20 mg/day. Sertraline dose: 100‐150 mg/day.
Outcomes	Primary outcomes: change in Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Clinical Global Impression scores, response rate, remission rate.
Notes	This study was sponsored by Torrent pharmaceuticals.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "randomized". Likely done
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information provided.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No clear information provided. Probably done Quote: "...double–blind, single dummy, titratable dose, parallel group, multi‐centric study". And "...In order to maintain the blind, all double blind study medication was administered in alu ‐ alu (aluminum – aluminum) strips."
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No information about secondary outcome were reported. Quote: "Primary Efficacy Measures: 1) Change in HAM‐D total score (The sum of all 17 items); 2) CGI –S score and CGI –I score; 3) Response rate: HAM‐D score decrease by 50% from baseline; 4) Remission rate: HAM‐D score below 8.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	Primary outcomes data such as HDRS total scores and CGI total scores were reported only in figures.
Other bias	Unclear risk	Sponsorship bias cannot be ruled out.