| Methods |
RCT |
| Participants |
Arm of 3‐arm RCT, 50 children with respiratory infection, private paediatric practices, mean age 3.8 years, 53% boys, Finland |
| Interventions |
Antitussive: dextromethorphan 1.5 mg per ml 5 ml 3 times daily for children under 7 years and 10 ml 3 times daily for older children |
| Outcomes |
Daily symptom score recorded by parents including cough frequency and severity on a scale from 0 to 3 |
| Notes |
Small study with no power calculation reported. Low incidence of adverse effects with no differences between groups |
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
Reported as "randomly divided" into treatment groups |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
Low risk |
Reported as double‐blind; outcome assessor blinding not reported |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Low risk |
Follow‐up 96% |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
| Other bias |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
