Hebbal 2005

Methods	Cluster RCT
Participants	Inclusion criteria: school‐going children of Davangere city who were between 6 and 15 years old Exclusion criteria: not reported
Interventions	Comparison: the effectiveness of screening programme with motivation in increasing dental registration compared to screening alone Interventions: 1) screening and referral card supplemented with oral health education to children and motivation to parents from school authorities (no. of clusters = 7, n = 2100) 2) received screening and referral cards (no. of clusters =7, n =2400)
Outcomes	Primary outcome: response rate (dental attendance) Duration of follow‐up: 3 months
Notes	Language: English Funded by: not mentioned Costs of follow‐up: not reported Conducted in: Davangere, India Unit of randomisation: cluster Author contact information: drmamatahebbal@yahoo.co.in We tried contacting authors for information on results, ICC values and risk of bias assessment queries, but did not receive a reply.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	"These twenty schools were then subjected to a two‐stage simple random sampling technique for selection of the schools. In the first stage, fourteen schools were selected out of twenty by lottery method, and in the second stage these schools were assigned randomly either to the study or control group (seven schools in each group)". Comment: no mention of how schools were allocated to study or control group
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details given
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	"The response rate was calculated during the three‐month period from the date of initiation of the school screening program. During this period, the students who visited the dental college from the control group were examined, and dental findings were recorded. In order to obtain data regarding the number of children requiring treatment in the control group, a separate screening program was conducted after the waiting period of three months." Comment: children from study group had additional interventions like free treatment and also special attention from school authorities apart from standard intervention planned.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Primary outcome is attendance. Quote, "were investigated by using a computer program validated to be approximately 95% accurate" . Comment: risk of detection bias is low.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No loss to follow‐up in the study; all participants were accounted for in the analysis.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All pre‐stated outcomes in the methods were reported.
Other bias	Low risk	No other source of bias