Resources > Critical Appraisal

General

How to read a paper
A set of ten guides in the BMJ.


Critical Appraisal Skills Workshop
A downloadable Power Point presentation from the Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility at the University of Birmingham. There are accompanying notes on what the purpose of each slide is and suggestions on how to incorporate them into a presentation on critical appraisal skills.


How to Read a Medical Journal Article
By Steve Simon (a.k.a. Professor Mean) of the Children's Mercy Hospital.


NHS R&D Health Technology Assessment Methodology
Publications available for downloading in pdf format.


Effectiveness of instruction in critical appraisal (evidence-based medicine) skills: a critical appraisal
Article from the CMAJ by Geoffrey R. Norman, PhD and Susan I. Shannon, PhD.


Teaching critical appraisal: no quick fixes
Editorial from the CMAJ by David L. Sackett, MD and Julie Parkes, MD.


Teaching Critical Appraisal: Guide and Tips
ScHARR's practical guide to setting up a critical appraisal workshop and tips on small group teaching for critical appraisal.


Tutorials

Critical appraisal and using the literature
A tutorial from ScHARR taking you through the steps required to critically appraise a research study, to decide if if its contents could be used, to improve your practice and help you make informed decisions.


Evaluating the Studies You Find
An introduction from the SUNY Health Sciences Evidence Based Medicine Course.


Tools

The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)
in Oxford has a number of tools for developing critical appraisal skills.


Teaching Materials
including a set of worksheets for critical appraisal of articles on therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, harm, economic analysis, decision analysis and guidelines from the CEBM. The worksheets are downloadable Word files.


A Critical Appraisal Checklist
for appraising review articles. From the ARIF in Birmingham.


The EBM Toolbox
from the University of Alberta contains a number of worksheets providing a structured approach to critical analysis.


Appraising Studies
An interactive guide from the Centre for Evidence Based Emergency Medicine.


Critical Appraisal Forms
From CEBMH. These forms are checklists that will help you work through a paper. They ask questions that assess the validity and applicability of the research, to allow you to critically appraise the evidence.


Discussion Groups

critical-appraisal-skills
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)  discussion list.


CATs

CATbank
The CEBM has compiled a storage and retrieval facility for a collection of CATs (Critically Appraised Topics). CATs are a tactic for helping clinical learners teach themselves how to formulate clinical questions; search for the best evidence; appraise, organise and summarise this evidence; integrate it with clinical expertise; and practice evidence-based medicine.


Diagnostic Instruments

Reading an Article on Diagnosis
from the Web based EBM course at Michigan State University.


How to Read an Article on a New Diagnostic Test
part of the Epidemiology 'Supercourse'.


How to read a paper: Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests
by Trisha Greenhalgh in the BMJ.


How to Use an Article about a Diagnostic Test
including a Worksheet for Using an Article About Assessing Diagnostic Tests from the EBM Toolbox.


How good is that test? and How Good is that Test? II.
Reports on quality standards that should be met by reports of diagnostic procedures, from Bandolier.


Economic Evaluations

Economic Analysis Worksheet
from the EBM Toolbox.


Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses)
by Trisha Greenhalgh in the BMJ.


10 questions to help you make sense of economic evaluations
from Oxford's Critical Appraisal Skills Programme.


Meta Analyses/Reviews

How to read a paper: Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses)
by Trisha Greenhalgh in The BMJ.


Evaluate the validity of a meta-analysis.
Guide from Michigan State University's EBM course.


Locating and Appraising Systematic Reviews
from The Annals of Internal Medicine


10 questions to help you make sense of a review
from Oxford's Critical Appraisal Skills Programme.


Worksheet for Using a Systematic Review
from the EBM Toolbox.


Study Design

Assessing the quality of Randomised Controlled Trials
from the BMJ's guide to RCTs.

Assessing the quality of randomised controlled trials
A Health technology Assesment monograph executive summary. The full text can be downloaded.


10 questions to help you make sense of randomised controlled trials
from Oxford's Critical Appraisal Skills Programme.


How to read a paper: Papers that report drug trials
by Trisha Greenhalgh in the BMJ.


10 questions to help you make sense of qualitative research
from Oxford's Critical Appraisal Skills Programme.


How to read a paper: Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research)
in the BMJ.


Quality of Life Measures

Quality of Life Resource
Discussion of validity of measures.

Issues in the Measurement of Health-Related Quality of Life
Working Paper by Rod O'Connor of the National Centre for Health Program Evaluation Melbourne, Australia.



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