Callaghan 1982

Methods	Randomised, parallel open study designed to compare ESM with VPS treatment. Followed up for 18 months to 4 years, mean 3 years.
Participants	28 drug naive participants (13 male, 15 female), aged between 4 to 15 years. All participants with typical absence seizures.
Interventions	Monotherapy with ESM or VPS.
Outcomes	Complete or partial (50% to 90%) remission of seizures confirmed by 6 hours telemetry and observation by parents and teachers.
Notes
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Insufficient information to permit judgement.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No missing outcome data.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	The study protocol is not available but it is clear that the published reports include all expected outcomes.