Osunde 2012.

Study characteristics
Methods	Study design: parallel‐group RCT Conducted in: Benin City, Nigeria Number of centres: 1 (Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital) Recruitment period: not stated
Participants	Inclusion criteria: patients aged 18 to 38 years with mesioangular, distoangular, horizontal, and vertical impactions with a difficulty index of 3‐8 according to Peterson's criteria. No symptoms of pain, facial swelling, or trismus in 10 days preceding surgery, non‐smokers, no concomitant medications or systemic diseases that could interfere with healing Exclusion criteria: pregnant or lactating females, patients with more than 1 third molar requiring treatment Number of participants randomised: 80 Number of participants evaluated: 80
Interventions	No sutures versus multiple sutures for wound closure Group A (n = 40): no sutures Group B (n = 40): multiple sutures using 3/0 silk, placed at the interdental papilla immediately distil to the second molar, the buccal relieving incision, and the distil relieving incision Follow‐up: 7 days All procedures were carried out by the same surgeon and assistant under local anaesthetic.
Outcomes	Pain (0‐to‐10‐centimetre VAS), trismus, swelling, on days 1, 2, and 7
Notes	Sample size calculation: not reported E‐mail sent to otdany@yahoo.co.uk on 12 March 2012 requesting additional information on randomisation and participants. No reply received.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Quote: "Consecutively randomised into two treatment groups" Comment: method of sequence generation not described
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No mention of who conducted the random allocation and whether it was concealed from the surgeon
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) patient	Unclear risk	Not possible
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) assessor	Low risk	Quote: "...the patients were evaluated in a blinded manner by the same independent observer"
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	All randomised participants were included in the outcome assessment.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Planned outcomes reported in full.
Other bias	Low risk	No other sources of bias identified.