Pettinati 2001a.

Methods	Randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial
Participants	29 depressed people with alcohol dependence (number of men and women: data not available; mean age: data not available) Inclusion criteria: aged ≥ 18 years DSM‐III‐R diagnoses of depression and alcohol dependence Exclusion criteria: current substance dependence other than alcohol or nicotine serious or unstable physical illness bipolar illness, dementia, or psychosis need for other psychotropic medications Participants with bipolar disorder were excluded.
Interventions	Drugs: sertraline (up to 200 mg/day; 12 participants) placebo (17 participants) Psychotherapy: weekly individual cognitive‐behavioural therapy Scheduled duration of treatment: 14 weeks Sites: University of Pennsylvania and the Carrier Foundation, USA Setting: outpatients Starting dose: 50 mg/day Pattern of dose reduction: tapering during the last 2 weeks of treatment
Outcomes	Depression: final HRSD score final BDI score Alcohol dependence: rate of abstinent days (obtained from the rate of drinking days) number of abstinent participants time to first relapse Dropouts: information not available Adverse effects: information not available
Notes	Baseline characteristics of participants Depression: primary depression: information not available severity: information not available duration: information not available Alcohol dependence: severity: information not available duration: information not available being actively drinking: participants had to be actively drinking in the past 30 days, seeking treatment for alcohol problems Other psychiatric comorbidity: participants with other mental disorders were excluded. Other substance use disorders: participants with substance use disorders were excluded. Other characteristics of study Other pharmacological treatment offered: other pharmacological treatments were not allowed. Funding source: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (R01‐AA09544 and KO2‐AA00239) and by Veteran Affairs Medical Center. Pfizer Inc. provided sertraline and matching placebo. Declarations of interest: information not available Other information In the original study participants were divided into 2 groups: never depressed (47 participants) with lifetime depression (53 participants; 26 men and 27 women; age (mean ± SD): sertraline = 42.3 ± 9.3 years; placebo = 43.8 ± 10.9 years) Participants with lifetime depression were then divided into 2 subgroups: with current depression (29 participants) with only lifetime diagnosis of depression (24 participants) In the meta‐analysis, we included only participants with current depression. Unfortunately, dropouts and adverse events were not provided for each subgroup.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Sequence generation referred to 1 randomization schedule for both sites.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Method of concealment was not reported.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Double‐blind stated and medications prepared to appear identical. No specific reference made to blinding of participants and personnel.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) objective	Low risk	No information on the blinding of outcome assessors.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) subjective	Unclear risk	No information on the blinding of outcome assessors.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Intention‐to‐treat analysis used.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All expected outcomes reported.