Franz 2004.

Methods	STUDY DESIGN: RCT Risk of Bias: MEDIUM
Participants	PROVIDERS: physicians in neonatal units PARTICIPANTS: 1291 neonates < 72 hours of age were randomised (656 intervention, 635 control) CLINICAL PROBLEM: suspected bacterial infection SETTING: 8 centres in 5 countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Sweden)
Interventions	FORMAT, Interventions: dissemination of guideline; structural, introduction of testing for C‐reactive protein and interleukin‐8 with decision support algorithm Intervention Functions: education, enablement, environmental restructuring DELIVERER: department physician COMPARISON: usual care DESIRED CHANGE: decrease excessive POWER CALCULATION: yes, total of 1150 participants. Details in Appendix 3
Outcomes	PRESCRIBING: Exposure: number of newborn infants who received antibiotic therapy
Notes	FINANCIAL SUPPORT: Funding: grant P.575 from the Center for Applied Clinical Studies of the University of Ulm and Swedish Research Council. DPC (Los Angeles, CA) provided the Immulite automated analysers and the kits for determination of IL‐8 and sponsored the initial meeting of the investigators. Competing Interests: no information ADDITIONAL DATA: no response from authors to request for additional data
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	"Randomly assigned to 1 or 2 diagnostic algorithms using sealed opaque envelopes"
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Done, IL‐8 results were only provided to physicians in the intervention group.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk
Other bias	Low risk
Baseline Outcomes similar?	High risk	No data
Free of contamination?	Low risk
Baseline characteristics similar?	Low risk