3. Methodological quality assessment results for individual trials.

Items / Trials	Atkin 1995	Gebuhr 1992	Leung 2003	Van Leemput 2007
1. Allocation concealment	N	?	N	N
2. Intention‐to‐treat analysis	N	N	?	N
3. Assessor blinding	N	N	N	N
4. Baseline characteristics comparability	N	N	?	Y
5. Participant blinding	N	N	N	N
6. Treatment provider blinding	N	N	N	N
7. Care programme comparability	N	N	?	?
8. Inclusion and exclusion criteria	?	Y	Y	Y
9. Well defined outcome measures	Y	Y	Y	Y
10. Clinically useful diagnostic tests	Y	Y	Y	?
11. Adequate duration of follow‐up	?	?	Y	?

Y = yes; ? = partial/unknown; N = no

* Assessments for items 9, 10 and 11 relate to the outcome of fracture non‐union.