Kilpi 1995.

Methods	Randomised, unblinded
Participants	3 months to 15 years; suspected bacterial meningitis with CSF criteria; 58 participants (gender not reported; 32 DXM, 26 placebo); Finland
Interventions	DXM 1.5 mg/kg/d, 3 d; before or with AB
Outcomes	Mortality, hearing loss, neurological sequelae, adverse events (gastrointestinal bleeding)
Notes	AB ‐ ceph, mortality 2% Other ‐ trial also evaluated adjunctive glycerol and combined adjunctive glycerol and DXM therapy Funding ‐ Arvo and Leo Ylppö foundation (charity)
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Computer‐generated list of random therapy assignments
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	The treatment allocation was not concealed
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Study was not blinded
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Incomplete outcome data addressed
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	No intention‐to‐treat analysis
Other bias	High risk	High number of pre‐treated patients compared to other studies. Unevenly distributed between randomisation arms