Campos‐Lobato 2011.

Methods	Cohort Prospective Cross‐sectional
Participants	153 patients (104 men, 49 women) APE 68, AR 85 USA
Interventions	Quality of life assessment with SF‐36
Outcomes	Quality of life
Notes	Evidence level: 2B. Not stated: Dukes grade, level of anastomosis in AR group, pouch in AR group
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	High risk	Prospective, cross‐sectional cohort study. Rectal cancer patients identified through local database. Only patients with documented preoperative overall QoL assessment included
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Anterior resection or abdominoperineal resection	High risk	Blinding not possible due to surgical therapy.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Quality of life	High risk	Not all patients completed the questionnaire at all times.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	Only overall QoL were reported in the publication