Skip to main content
. 2017 Jun 19;2017(6):CD000245. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD000245.pub4

Franks 1984.

Methods Double‐blinded RCT
Participants 67 people aged 14 years or older with fewer than 15 days of productive cough (in the absence of clinical pneumonitis). Excluded if could not produce sputum specimen for Gram stain. Dropouts = 13/67
Interventions Trimethoprim‐sulfamethoxazole (160/800) twice daily for 7 days versus identical‐appearing placebo. Participants kept daily symptom logs. No follow‐up visit
Outcomes Cough, night cough, sputum production, general well‐being, fever, work disability, use of adjunctive medications, and side effects
Notes No mention of per cent of eligible patients who refused enrolment
Risk of bias
Bias Authors' judgement Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias) Unclear risk Not reported
Allocation concealment (selection bias) Low risk  
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) 
 All outcomes Low risk  
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Low risk  
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) 
 All outcomes Low risk  
Selective reporting (reporting bias) Unclear risk Not reported
Other bias Low risk