Kissinger 2005.

Methods	Setting: public STI clinic in New Orleans, US Enrolment: participants enrolled from December 2001 to March 2004 Follow‐up: index patients were asked to return 4 weeks after the initial clinic visit (with a window of 2‐8 weeks) for a follow‐up interview and a urine specimen
Participants	977 index patients with diagnosis of urethritis were randomised Inclusion criteria Male Diagnosis of urethritis Test positive for Chlamydia trachomatis or Neisseria gonorrhoeae 16‐44 years old At least 1 female sexual partner who did not accompany them to clinic Exclusion criteria No criteria specified
Interventions	Simple patient referral (n = 285) Index patients were instructed to tell their partners that they needed to go to either the public STI clinic or the clinic of their choice for STI evaluation and treatment Patient referral booklet enhanced (n = 348) Index patients were given a wallet‐sized booklet that contained 4 tear‐out cards with information for the partner and treatment guidelines for professionals. If they had more than 4 partners they were given additional booklets EPT (n = 344) Index patients were given packages containing medication, written instructions about how to take medication, warning about adverse effects, 24‐h nurse's pager number to call if any enquiries and asked to give package to each of their partners
Outcomes	Primary outcome Proportion of partners who received antibiotic treatment (self report by index patient) Secondary outcome Recurrence of C. trachomatis and N. gonorrhoeae in index patient (urine sample or urethral swab collected at follow‐up interview) Behavioural outcome ‐ partners treated (self report) Sexual outcome ‐ unprotected sex before partner treatment, re‐initiated sex with baseline partner, unprotected sex with any partner (self report)
Notes	Institutional review board approval was obtained from all participating institutions Authors were contacted for statistical analysis (sample size calculations, power) details and exact numbers, authors replied that sample size calculations were performed, but could not provide exact details
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Randomised by month in which they attended the clinic to 1 of 3 study arms. Randomisation of months was conducted using a blocked scheme of 3 to 6 units using Microsoft Excel software
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information given
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	770/977 (79%) participants returned for follow‐up interview but only 37.5% were retested. At follow‐up interview, index patients were asked outcome questions for each partner. Outcome of interest was the response to the question: "Did baseline partner tell you that he or she took the medicine?"
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Same outcomes in the methods section (re‐infection index patient and partners treated) were reported in the results section. With additional sexual outcomes (unprotected sex before partner treatment, re‐initiated sex with baseline partner, unprotected sex with any partner) not stated in the methods section. Protocol not available from 3 trial registries
Other bias	Low risk	No other bias identified
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Participant and personnel not blinded
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	High risk	The 1‐month interview was performed either by computer‐assisted self interview or study staff The outcomes were assessed by an interview either computer‐assisted self interview (24.3%), telephonic (35.4%) or face‐to‐face (40.2%). The interviewer was not blinded. An in‐person interview has the potential for information bias. No details given whether laboratory personnel were blinded but outcome measure was objective