Reporting

1. Is the objective of the study clearly described?

2. Are the main outcomes to be measured clearly described in the Introduction or Methods section?

3. Were inclusion and exclusion criteria clearly stated?

4. Are the characteristics of the patients included clearly described?

5. Is the Class III malocclusion fully described?

6. Are the interventions of interest clearly described?

7. Are the distributors of principal confounders in each group of subjects to be compared clearly described?

8. Are the main findings of the study clearly described?

9. Does the study provide estimates of the random variability in the data for the main outcomes?

10. Have all important adverse events that may be a consequence of the intervention been reported?

11. Have the characteristics of patients lost to follow-up been described?

12. Have actual probability values been reported for the main outcomes except where the probability value is less than 0.001?

External validity

13. Were the patients asked to participate in the study representative of the entire population from which they were recruited?

14. Were those subjects who were prepared to participate representative of the entire population from which they were recruited?

15. Were the staff, places, and facilities where the patients were treated, representative of the treatment the majority of patients receive?

Internal validity – bias

16. Was an attempt made to blind those measuring the main outcome of the intervention?

17. If any of the results of the study were based on “data dredging”, was that made clear?

18. Do the analyses adjust for different lengths of follow-up of patients?

19. Were the statistical tests used to assess the main outcomes appropriate?

20. Was compliance with the intervention reliable?

21. Were the main outcomes measures used accurate (valid and reliable)?

Internal validity – confounding

22. Were the patients in different intervention groups recruited from the same population?

23. Were the baseline characteristics comparable?

24. Were study subjects in different intervention groups recruited over the same period of time?

25. Was there adequate adjustment for confounding in the analyses from which the main findings were drawn?

26. Were losses of patients to follow-up taken into account?

Power

27. Prior estimate of sample size