Adisa 2011.

Study characteristics
Methods	RCT
Participants	165 people undergoing clean general surgery in Nigeria between August 2007 and July 2008
Interventions	Group 1: removal with a razor (n = 86) Group 2: removal with cream (n = 79) Product details: no details are given for the razor, the cream was Veet. Timing of hair removal: the morning of the operation. Hair removed by: nursing staff. Venue for hair removal: the operating theatre.
Outcomes	Primary outcome: wound infection. Southampton wound infection scoring system used. Secondary outcomes: presence of injury, presence of skin reactions, and adequacy of hair removal. Wounds assessed on days 3, 5, and 7 postoperatively by an independent "senior resident". All participants were followed up for at least 5 weeks.
Notes	No funding sources mentioned. No details of conflict of interest. This paper is an abridged version of an unpublished dissertation.
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "Randomised into two groups using a balloting method"; "Consecutive patients were asked to pick one of two sealed envelopes containing a folded paper on which one of the two methods was written" Comment: done.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Low risk	Quote: "patients asked to pick one of two sealed envelopes" Comment: done.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Care providers blinded	Unclear risk	Not reported. Comment: unclear whether care providers were blinded to intervention allocation.
Blinding (performance bias and detection bias) Participants blinded	High risk	Not reported. Comment: participants would have been aware of hair removal method.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Quote: "wounds were inspected by senior resident who had not participated in the surgery" Comment: probably done.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) ITT analysis undertaken	Unclear risk	Not reported. Comment: no information provided regarding whether participants were analysed in the groups to which they had been allocated.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Drop out rate acceptable	Low risk	Participants who dropped out are accounted for, and participants are distributed evenly across groups. Comment: the number of dropouts was judged to be unlikely to have altered the result, even in a worst‐case scenario (i.e. assuming that those that dropped out developed an SSI).
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	Main outcomes reported. Comment: unlikely to be affected by reporting bias.
Other bias	Low risk	Comment: participant groups were equal or similar.