Melbye 1991.

Methods	RCT, 7/80 withdrawals
Participants	Norway: 80 adults with acute respiratory infection with more than 1 week of cough (95%) and/or dyspnoea (71%); mean duration of illness 24 days, no evidence of pneumonia, tonsillitis or sinusitis (without wheezing or dyspnoea); temp less than 38 C; baseline FEV‐1 more than 60%; 22% in fenoterol group and 19% in placebo group had wheezing on initial exam
Interventions	Fenoterol aerosol (0.2 mg every 6 hours) (N = 40) versus placebo aerosol (N = 40) for 7 days
Outcomes	Per cent change from baseline for day cough, night cough, sputum production, dyspnoea, chest pain, clamminess, fatigue; number with tremor or palpitations
Notes	Antibiotics allowed if begun more than 3 days prior to enrolment (40% in fenoterol group versus 28% in placebo group); other adjunctive treatments not mentioned Study medication was provided by a pharmaceutical company
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	The study is described as randomised, but there is no information about the sequence generation method
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	There is no information about the method of allocation used
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Details about blinding of participants, care providers, or outcome assessors were not provided
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	73 participants completed the trial (80 enrolled); information was available for only 6 of the 7 dropouts. No ITT analysis
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All planned outcomes appear to have been reported