Ellison undated.

Methods	Setting: Alexandra Health Centre and University Clinic, a community health clinic and principle provider of health care to the township of Alexandra, South Africa Enrolment: participants enrolled from 23 June to 12 September 1997 Follow‐up: no follow‐up of index patient scheduled
Participants	1719 index patients, 811 men and 908 females, with any STI syndromically diagnosed were enrolled Inclusion criteria Any outpatient aged 19‐60 years Diagnosed with STI Not accompanied by partner Not enrolled in the study previously Exclusion criteria Not specified
Interventions	Simple patient referral (n = 433) Index patient received a standard clinical consultation given by a nurse and received a contact card to be given to partner Patient referral and health education message (n = 431) Index patient received a standard clinical consultation, contact card and standardised verbal health education message given by nurse Patient referral and counselling (n = 430) Index patient received a standard clinical consultation, contact card and patient‐centred counselling in a private room, conducted by trained lay‐counsellors of same gender Patient referral with health education message and counselling (n = 425) Index patient received a standard clinical consultation, contact card and both interventions (health education by the nurse and counselling by lay‐counsellors)
Outcomes	Partners presented for care with a notification slip at the health centre (clinical records) The time taken for notified partner to seek treatment at the health centre (clinical records) Contact cards issued and returned (recorded by nurse or lay‐counsellor)
Notes	Ethical approval from Committee for Research on Human Subjects of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Each consecutive patient received an anonymous consecutive number ‐ no specific details on how these numbers were delivered
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	Research nurse allocated alternate patients to 1 of 4 groups. Research nurse allocated alternate interventions to each consecutive patient according to a printed schedule (drawn up by project co‐ordinator). Authors acknowledge that research nurse could unwittingly or deliberately influence which patient received each intervention
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Low risk for main outcome, partner treated
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Outcomes reported in methods section were reported in results section
Other bias	Low risk	No other risk of bias identified
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Personnel and participant not blinded
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	The research personnel at the pharmacy and casualty unit who collected the PN slips were masked to which intervention the participant received Masked bivariate analysis, unmasked multivariate statistical analysis took place