Lv 2012.

Study characteristics
Methods	Design: parallel RCT Duration: 12 weeks Setting: recruited from a single outpatient university hospital; China Detailsofrun‐inperiod: not provided
Participants	Population: 150 participants Age: 18 to 65 years Proportion of male participants: intervention: 67%; control: 50% Smoking history: not stated ‐ smokers were excluded Inclusion criteria: older than 18 years of age, physician‐diagnosed asthma according to GINA at least 3 months before recruitment, bronchodilator reversibility test or bronchodilator provocation test positive in the past year, owning a mobile phone, and ability to read and understand the questionnaires Exclusion criteria: respiratory infection within the previous 4 weeks, pregnancy, heart disease, stomach surgery, other lung diseases, or current or past smoking history of > 10 pack‐years Percentage withdrawn: intervention: 40% dropout; control: 72% dropout
Interventions	Digital intervention (asthma education + SMS communication) Verbal asthma education by outpatient physician based on the Global Initiative for Asthma and daily SMS reminder on how to manage asthma. Participants could send asthma‐related questions by text to clinic investigators for answers. Single digital component. No interactive component. There is adherence feedback and is not fully/self‐delivered digital intervention. Control group: Verbal asthma education as above. Participants also provided a PEF meter and received training on correct use. Participants were encouraged to keep asthma diaries with PEF data, medication usage and asthma symptoms. Additionally, they were taught how to adjust asthma action plan based on their recorded information
Outcomes	PCA Questionnaire (PCAQ‐6), Standard Asthma‐Specific Quality of Life (AQLQ(S)), spirometry, blood and induced sputum cell count, follow‐up compliance rate, medicine compliance rate, emergency department (ED) visits
Notes	Type of publication: peer‐reviewed Funding: none stated but the work was supported in part by the pulmonary function technicians who work in the Lung Function Department, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China COI: no COI
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information on how randomised ‐ states "randomly allocated"
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	No information on allocation
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Intervention is such that there is unlikely to be blinding ‐ and no blinding indicated
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	No information on how compliance was measured so uncertain if there was bias in outcome assessment
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	High rates of withdrawal: 72% from control vs 40% from intervention, meaning the intervention group may have the more adherent patients in that group thus potentially impacting the results
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All outcomes reported