Table 5 Best evidence syntheses of comparisons made by more than one of the included studies

Intervention	Control intervention	Outcome measure	Study	Methodological quality	Results	Evidence*
PEG	Placebo	Defecation frequency	Thomson42	HQ	More effective	Moderate evidence
	Lactulose	Defecation frequency	Voskuijl46	HQ	ns	Conflicting evidence
			Candy20	HQ	More effective
			Wang48	HQ	ns
			Dupont23	LQ	ns
			Gremse25	LQ	More effective
Lactulose	Senna	Defecation frequency	Perkin37	LQ	ns	Conflicting evidence
Lactulose	Liquid paraffin	Defecation frequency	Urganci44	LQ	Less effective	Conflicting evidence
Senna	Lactulose	Defecation frequency	Perkin37	LQ	ns	Conflicting evidence
	Mineral oil	Defecation frequency	Sondheimer40	LQ	Less effective
	Placebo and no medication	Faecal incontinence frequency	Berg16	LQ	ns
Mineral oil	Biofeedback therapy	Faecal incontinence frequency	Wald47	LQ	ns	Conflicting evidence
	Senna	Defecation frequency	Sondheimer40	LQ	More effective
	PEG	Defecation frequency	Tolia43	LQ	Less effective

*Evidence for an effect of the intervention under study compared to all control interventions.
HQ, high methodological quality; LQ, low methodological quality; ns, not significant polyethylene glycol.