Ridsdale 1999.

Methods	Randomised controlled trial (approximately 6 months follow‐up)
Participants	251 individuals with epilepsy registered with 37 general practitioners in the South Thames region of England Mean age of participants was 51 years; 54% were male
Interventions	Intervention: special epilepsy nurse in primary care Control: usual care
Outcomes	Measures of knowledge, anxiety, and depression from a postal questionnaire; patients were sent the questionnaire on two occasions, approximately six months apart
Funding	Study funded by the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust
Notes	Excluded people with a diagnosis of learning or language disability
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No details of randomisation provided
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Details of allocation concealment were not reported
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	None of the participants, clinicians or assessors appeared to have been blinded. For some outcomes (from questionnaires), this may have introduced bias,
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	22% of participants did not respond at end of study. However, neither those who attended (106/127; 78%) nor participants who responded at stage 2 (196/251; 78%) differed significantly from non‐attenders or non‐responders with respect to key baseline characteristics.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	Outcomes were derived from a "questionnaire that included measures of knowledge, anxiety, and depression". It is unclear if findings were selectively reported.
Other bias	High risk	Power calculations and the required sample size were not reported. There was no obvious possibility of contamination. Trialists told participants in the intervention group that they would attend a 'neurology clinic', which may have been interpreted as specialist care. Potentially this belief may have improved patient outcomes over and above the effects of the intervention from the epilepsy nurse specialist.
Overall risk of bias	Unclear risk	A lack of clarity about randomisation and blinding and moderate levels of dropout, although it is noted that attenders and responders did not significantly differ from non‐attenders or non‐responders with respect to key baseline characteristics.