| Methods |
Design: three group parallel trial
Purpose: study the effect of gum chewing on postoperative ileus |
| Participants |
Patients: in‐patients having had performed abdominal surgery
Baseline comparability: yes (age, gender) |
| Interventions |
Placebo: Acupressure bracelet used on an inert location
Untreated: no chewing gum or bracelet
Experimental: chewing gum
(Co‐intervention: standard postoperative care) |
| Outcomes |
Time to first flatus
Time to first bowel movement
Time to ready for discharge
Time to actual discharge |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Bias |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Adequate sequence generation? |
Unclear risk |
'computer‐generated' |
| Allocation concealment? |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Blinding?
Treatment provider |
High risk |
Not described as double‐blind (placebo/chewing gum) |
| Blinding?
Outcome assessor |
Unclear risk |
NS |
| Incomplete outcome data addressed?
All outcomes |
High risk |
Drop‐out > 15% or NS |
| Free of selective reporting? |
Unclear risk |
No protocol available |
| Free of other bias? |
Low risk |
|
| No signs of variance inequality or skewness? |
Low risk |
No variance inequality (F‐test not statistically significant) and no skewness (1.64 standard deviations does not exceed the mean) |
| Trial size > 49? |
High risk |
N = 44 |
| Clearly concealed allocation + trial size > 49 + drop‐out max 15% |
High risk |
Trial size < 49 |
