Ahmed 2011

Methods	Parallel, quasi‐RCT
Participants	Country of study: Egypt Setting: Dept of Neurology, hospital‐based Condition: chronic phantom limb pain Prior management details: unresponsive to various pain medications n = 27, 17 active and 10 sham Age, mean (SD): active group 52.01 (12.7) years, sham group 53.3 (13.3) years Duration of symptoms, mean (SD) months: active group 33.4 (39.3), sham group 31.9 (21.9) Gender distribution: active group 13 M, 4 F; sham group 6 M, 4 F
Interventions	Stimulation type: rTMS Stimulation parameters: frequency 20 Hz; coil orientation not specified, number of trains 10; duration of trains 10 s; ITI 50 s; total number of pulses 2000 Stimulation location: M1 stump region Number of treatments: x 5, daily Control type: sham ‐ coil angled away from scalp
Outcomes	Primary: pain VAS (anchors not reported), LANNS When taken: poststimulation session 1 and 5 and at 1 month and 2 months post‐treatment Secondary: none relevant
Notes	AEs: not reported COI: not reported Sources of support: not reported
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	High risk	Comment: not true randomisation Quote: "patients were randomly assigned to 2 groups depending on the day of the week on which they were recruited"
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	Comment: given method of randomisation allocation concealment not viable
Adequate blinding of participants?	Unclear risk	Comment: sham credibility assessment ‐ suboptimal. Coil angled away from scalp. Did not control for sensory characteristics of active stimulation and was visually distinguishable
Adequate blinding of assessors?	Low risk	Quote: "The second author evaluated these measures blindly, without knowing the type of TMS"
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Comment: levels of dropout not reported
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Comment: primary outcomes presented in full
Study Size	High risk	Comment: < 50 participants per treatment arm
Study duration	Low risk	> 8 weeks' follow‐up
Other bias	Low risk	Comment: no other bias detected