Ban 2015.
| Study characteristics | ||
| Methods | Quote: "Group randomised" trial. Only 2 clusters, which were 2 kindergartens in Xiantao City, Hubei Province, China. | |
| Participants | Data for a total of 393 participants were analysed (intervention group = 194, control group = 199). 5 classes (221 children) randomly selected from 1 kindergarten in the intervention group and 6 classes (244 children) randomly selected from another kindergarten in the control group. Children were aged 5 or under. There were 72 exclusions from the analysis. |
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| Interventions | Intervention group: hand hygiene and surface‐cleaning education and provision of products for kindergarten and home use. Control group: usual practice. See Table 4 for details. | |
| Outcomes | Respiratory illness, defined as: 2 or more of the following: fever, cough and expectoration, runny nose and nasal congestion, collected by parental questionnaire. Axillary temperature higher than 37.3 °C or the range of temperature fluctuation is more than 1 °C. 'Cough and expectoration' were defined as 3 or more coughs in a single hour and lasting for 4 or more hours in a single day, with or without expectoration. 'Runny nose and nasal congestion' were defined as a runny nose lasting for 4 or more hours in 1 day, with or without nasal congestion. | |
| Notes | Funding not mentioned. Disclosure of interest: none mentioned. | |
| Risk of bias | ||
| Bias | Authors' judgement | Support for judgement |
| Random sequence generation (selection bias) | High risk | Method not described, and only 2 clusters. |
| Allocation concealment (selection bias) | Unclear risk | Method not described. |
| Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes | High risk | Unblinded study |
| Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes | High risk | Unblinded study |
| Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes | High risk | Parental report, and parents were aware of treatment allocation |
| Selective reporting (reporting bias) | High risk | Attrition reported and balanced between groups, but high rate of attrition in a trial with small numbers of participants. |