| Methods |
Double‐blind, randomised, placebo‐controlled trial |
| Participants |
Participants were people who presented to the General Practitioner with sore throat, aged more than 10 years. 745 participants were commenced on the study. Only 528 returned questionnaires. Participants were excluded if the General Practitioner thought the participant would demonstrate poor compliance; if they had previous reaction to penicillin; or a previous episode of rheumatic fever or acute nephritis |
| Interventions |
Oral penicillin 4 times a day for 5 days or identical‐looking and tasting oral lactose placebo 4 times a day for 5 days |
| Outcomes |
Symptom of fever |
| Notes |
Antipyretic use was not documented |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Low risk |
Randomised by pre‐determined random order |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Low risk |
|
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
Low risk |
Double‐blind study design |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Low risk |
|
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Unclear risk |
Antipyretic use was not documented |
