Scullin 2007.

Study characteristics
Methods	Randomised controlled trial
Participants	762 participants randomised (371 to medication review and 391 to control) Participants were admitted to medical wards at 3 general hospitals in Northern Ireland Mean age: 70.1 years 47% male
Interventions	A clinical pharmacist (aided by a pharmacy technician) constructed an accurate medication history by using a variety of sources and reviewed drug treatment daily, taking into account therapeutic goals, relevant clinical chemistry and haematology results and, when appropriate, therapeutic drug monitoring. The intervention also included medication counselling tailored to suit the needs of each individual participant. The control group received traditional clinical pharmacy services, which were in place across the participating hospitals.
Outcomes	Primary outcome: difference in length of hospital stay Secondary outcomes: time to hospital readmission, number of readmissions, healthcare practitioner satisfaction All outcomes had 30 days of follow‐up
Notes	Funding: Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland), under its Executive Programme Fund scheme
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Low risk	Allocated to groups using closed‐envelope technique, therefore indirectly regarded as random sequence generation.
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Allocated to groups using closed‐envelope technique, but no description of whether they were sequentially numbered or opaque. Randomisation was performed in blocks of 20 (each block contained 10 intervention and 10 control allocations), which could reveal allocation. No description of who included participants.
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	High risk	Not described as blinded.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) Mortality (all‐cause)	Low risk	Data collected by researchers aware of assignments, but this will likely not influence assessment of mortality.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) Hospital readmissions (all‐cause)	Low risk	Data collected by researchers aware of assignments, but this will likely not influence assessment of readmissions. Readmission data were collected from the hospital computer system.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Mortality (all‐cause)	Unclear risk	Discrepancies in the publication concerning reporting of mortality data, as 7 participants seem to be missing from the medication review group and 1 from the control group.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) Hospital readmissions (all‐cause)	High risk	Discrepancies in the publication concerning reporting of hospital readmission data. The publication states that 141 participants (40.8%) were readmitted in the medication review group versus 171 participants (49.3%) in the control group. However, when percentages were used to calculate the total number of participants, 25 participants seemed to be missing from the medication review group (346 versus 371), but only 1 was described as lost to follow‐up and 42 as missing from the control group (349 versus 391); only 7 were described as lost to follow‐up. This could have influenced the outcome of hospital readmissions.
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All relevant outcomes seem to have been reported.
Contamination bias	High risk	No cluster‐randomisation.
Other bias	High risk	Unequal randomisation with 371 participants assigned to the medication review group and 391 to the control group, which should not have been possible when block sizes were 20. This may have been possible if each block was per hospital, but this was not described. Very unclear reporting of data. Data not reported for surgical wards; no reason stated for excluding data. No protocol available.