2. Summary of study and participant characteristics at baseline.
| Intervention arm | No. of studies (participants) | Average study duration (weeks) | Average Age | % Male participants | Average BMI (kg/m2) | Average AHI (events/hr) | Average ESS |
| Auto‐CPAP | 36 (2135) | 11 | 52 | 71 | 34 | 42 | 13 |
| Bi‐PAP | 6 (325) | 16 | 55 | 76 | 35 | 50 | 13 |
| CPAPexp | 10 (658) | 8 | 53 | 60 | 34 | 54 | 13 |
| Humidification + fixed CPAP | 6 (359) | 7 | 52 | 74 | 32 | 42 | 12 |
| Auto‐CPAPexp | 2 (188) | 14 | 49 | 77 | 34 | 39 | 11 |
| Bi‐PAP (multimodality) | 3 (187) | 12 | 54 | 86 | 32 | 41 | 10 |
| CPAPexp with wakefulness detection | 1 (70) | 4 | 51 | 69 | 36 | ‐ | 11 |
All interventions are compared with fixed CPAP. AHI: Apnoea Hypopnoea Index; BMI: body mass index; ESS: Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Averages calculated as mean of baseline means from studies contributing to each comparison. For cross‐over studies duration reflects amount of time treatment groups are exposed to one of the treatment arms, rather than the entire length of the study (conventionally double the duration of a single treatment arm exposure).