Sadowski 1988.

Methods	Single‐centre RCT (USA) Study period: November 1982 to December 1985 Setting: surgical ICU
Participants	Adult burn patients with a CVC in place Number of participants: 50 Number of catheters; 50 Age: mean age of 5.4 years (10 weeks to 15 years) Sex: 68% male
Interventions	Skin antisepsis prior to catheter removal: Intervention: 70% isopropyl alcohol applied for 3 minutes prior to catheter removal Control: no skin antisepsis
Outcomes	Catheter colonisation Positive blood culture (not reported according to group allocation) Outcomes assessed at various points during in‐patient stay.
Notes	Funding source: not stated.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	'Materials and methods': Patients were "randomly assigned to one of two groups". Method of random sequence generation not described
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Although not stated in the article, blinding appeared highly unlikely because the intervention involved an additional measure in catheter site care.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Blinding of microbiological outcome assessor not reported
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Although not clearly stated, it appeared that all 50 patients were analysed in their originally assigned groups as the tabulated results suggest.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	There were 2 major outcomes reported, namely, catheter colonisation (positive catheter tip culture) and positive blood culture. However, the data from positive blood culture was unsuitable to be included in the meta‐analysis as it was reported only as an overall figure and not according to the allocated groups.
Other bias	Low risk	None identified