Heckman 2007

Methods	A randomised controlled trial.
Participants	Rural (defined as residence in a community of 50,000 persons or fewer that was at least 20 miles from a city of 100,000 or more) persons (n=299) with a self‐reported diagnosis of HIV in the United States. The majority (75%) of participants were white. 30% were women. No inclusion or exclusion criteria related to psychological functioning were employed. Study quote: 'There were no differences between the treatment conditions at pre‐intervention with the exception of education. Post‐hoc comparisons revealed that Information Support Group Intervention participants completed fewer years of education than Coping Improvement Group Intervention participants.'
Interventions	Participants were assigned to a telephone‐delivered eight session information support group (n=84), a telephone‐delivered eight session coping improvement intervention group (n=108), or a usual care control group (n=107). Both intervention conditions had separate groups for men who had sex with men (MSM), heterosexual men and women. There were six to eight participants per group, and the interventions were conducted using teleconference technology. The control group received no active intervention, but were able to access services provided by their AIDS service organisation.
Outcomes	Outcomes were: BDI score; Symptom Checklist 90‐Revisied score; HIV‐Related Life‐Stressor Burden Scale score; Provision of Social Relations Scale score; The Barriers to Care Scale score; Functional Assessment of HIV Infection Inventory score; Coping Self‐Efficacy Scale score; and demographic characteristics.
Notes
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information on random sequence generation in the study.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No mention of allocation concealment in the study.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Blinding of participants and personnel was unlikely to be feasible in this study, but we do not think this will have affected the results.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No mention of blinding of outcome assessment.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	73% (n=78) of the usual care condition, 68% (n=57) of the Information Support Group condition, and 82% (n=88) of the Coping Improvement Group condition completed eight month follow‐up assessment.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Protocol was unavailable to us.