Massoud 1996

Methods	Randomised controlled trial (non‐blinded)
Participants	96 patients in total (74 female, 22 male). The mean age was 56.6 and the mean duration of symptoms was 24.5 months. The number of patients in the groups which used the Epley manoeuvre was 46 (35 female, 11 male). The follow‐up was at 1 week Inclusion criteria were fulfilment of the Brandt diagnostic criteria There were no details of the exclusion criteria
Interventions	There were 4 groups of interventions in total, 2 of which used the liberatory manoeuvre as the fundamental treatment and are thus irrelevant to our objective. For the other groups, one used the Epley manoeuvre on its own (control) and the other used the Epley and then post‐manoeuvre restrictions. The post‐manoeuvre restrictions were for 1 week. They were to sleep upright for 2 days and then for the 5 remaining days not to sleep on the affected side. All groups were told to avoid any sudden head movements.
Outcomes	PRIMARY OUTCOMES: Objective: Dix‐Hallpike negative Subjective: patient assessment of the disappearance of the symptoms Outcomes were combined as a single measure of improvement with no information of either of these outcome components as a single entity
Notes	Both groups (control and intervention) were asked to avoid brisk head movements for 1 week
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	High risk	The random sequence was generated via a sequential method. This method used to allocate groups was based on the day they were booked in for appointments; even days versus odd days of the week (contact with lead author)
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	The assessor was not blinded to patients' group allocation
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	Non‐blinded
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No incomplete data
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk
Other bias	High risk	Both groups (control and intervention) were asked to avoid brisk head movements for 1 week