Fritz 2005

Methods	Open‐label, head‐to‐head controlled, parallel study. Two treatment arms: one TGB, one TPM. Participants were randomly assigned using non‐random component Duration of screening period: eight weeks, followed by a titration phase of three months and a maintenance period of three months
Participants	No information regarding study sites or countries 41 participants with drug‐resistant partial epilepsy randomly assigned. Baseline data reported for only 30 participants who completed the whole study Participants already taking one to three background AEDs
Interventions	Group one: TGB at least 20 mg/d; mean 32 mg/d Group two: TPM at least 200 mg/d; mean 335 mg/d
Outcomes	50% responder rates Cognitive effects Quality of life
Notes	Non‐accurate baseline data reported. Four participants excluded from ITT analysis for seizure reduction outcome
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	High risk	Non‐randomisation component employed in the sequence generation process. Sequence generated by odd versus even number of week in which participant was seen
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	No concealment used
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Study was open‐label
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Attrition rates reported and intention‐to‐treat analysis employed
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	All outcomes reported in methods section were reported in text; however, no protocol was available for comparison of outcomes. Participant characteristics reported for only 30 participants who completed the whole study of the 41 randomly assigned