| Methods |
RCT. Method of randomisation, allocation concealment and blinding of participants and investigators (including outcome assessors) not reported |
| Participants |
84 participants with superficial, mid‐dermal or mixed partial thickness burns at first presentation. Key exclusion criteria included electrical, chemical or frostbite burn, evidence of inhalation injury, treatment of burn with an active agent (i.e. SSD) before study entry and fractures and/or neurological injury |
| Interventions |
Hydrogel (Hydrofiber, ConvaTec, Bristol‐Myers Squibb, USA) dressing versus SSD |
| Outcomes |
Time to complete wound healing
Number of dressing changes
Cost of dressings
Incidence of infection |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
"Patients were assigned randomly" but method not described |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) |
Unclear risk |
Not reported |
| Blinding (performance bias and detection bias)
All outcomes |
High risk |
Stated as "unblinded" |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias)
All outcomes |
Low risk |
84 patients randomised. Only 2 dropouts in control group because they did not receive the treatment |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) |
Low risk |
All prespecified outcomes reported |
| Other bias |
Unclear risk |
Dressings provided by pharmaceutical company and no description of how potential bias was minimised; the company supervised the design of the study, the analyses and the development of the manuscript |
