Yang 2011.

Study characteristics
Methods	Aim: to treat early post‐stroke depression
Participants	Country: China Setting: inpatient Stroke: all pathological types, clinical diagnosis plus confirmation of lesion on imaging, no previous psychiatric and psychological disorders, age < 75 years old, stroke onset time < 72 hours, NIHSS score: 4 to 19 Mood: HAMD ≥ 8 Treatment: 20 people, mean age 64 ± 8 years, 8 men Control: 22 people, mean age 64 ± 10 years, 13 men Note inconsistency between abstract (20 in treatment and 22 in control, but in tables of results, there are 22 in treatment and 20 in control). We have used the data from the abstract Excluded: functional psychiatric disorder, functional depression, psychoactive substance and addictive substance induced psychiatric disorders, infectious disease, severe cognitive impairment to affect communication, severe aphasia to affect communication, severe cardiac, pulmonary, hepatic and renal function impairment, previous organic brain disease such as brain tumour, or symptomatic stroke, encephalitis
Interventions	Treatment: paroxetine 20 mg daily plus usual stroke care Control: usual stroke care Duration of treatment: at least 3 months Duration of follow‐up: 0
Outcomes	HAMD score, IL‐1β and IL‐6 level Death AEs not reported
Funding source	Source of funding: local scientific academic fund
Notes	−
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Quote: "Case sequence" randomisation
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not described
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	No placebo
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not described
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No dropouts
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Unclear risk	No protocol
Other bias	Low risk	No difference in baseline