Critical Appraisal Resources

• Evidence-Based Medicine Toolkit: hosted by the University of Alberta, this is an online box of handy tools to help you find, appraise, and apply in practice, evidence-based research
• How to read a paper – a set of guides from the BMJ. General topics include:
  • Getting your bearings (deciding what a paper is about)
  • Assessing the methodological quality of published papers
  • Statistics for the non-statistician
  • Statistics for the non-statistician II
• Levels of Evidence: ranking system for various study designs in order of evidence-based merit: systematic reviews/meta-analyses and well conducted randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are usually seen as the best form of evidence, with research based on the outcome of a case series placed somewhere near the bottom
• Netting the Evidence: search for the keyword “appraisal” to find a quality assessed list of appraisal resources

• How to read a paper: papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research): more detailed background on appraising qualitative research

Quality of Life (QOL) measures

• Issues in the measurement of health-related Quality of Life: some tips and background on appraising papers which measure quality of life

Economic evaluations (cost of health care interventions)

• How to read a paper: papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses): BMJ article explaining how to appraise a paper that evaluates the economic cost of a healthcare intervention

Controlled trials

This includes clinical trials, randomised controlled trials, crossover trials, and blinded trial designs.

• How to read a paper: papers that report drug trials: BMJ article explaining how to appraise a report of trial results

Meta-analyses and systematic reviews

• How to read a paper: papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses): BMJ article explaining how to appraise a review or meta-analysis
• Systematic Review (of Therapy) Worksheet (.doc): produced by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Toronto

Accuracy of diagnostic tests

These include things like the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, or DSM IV.

• Diagnostic Worksheet (.doc): produced by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Toronto
• How to read a paper: papers that report diagnostic or screening tests: BMJ article explaining how to appraise a paper about a diagnostic test

Therapy

• Therapy Worksheet (.doc): produced by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Toronto

Prognosis (long term outcome)

• Prognosis Worksheet (.doc): produced by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Toronto

Aetiology (risk of harm)

• Harm Worksheet (.doc): produced by the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Toronto

Clinical guidelines

• AGREE Collaboration – project which created an appraisal tool for assessing clinical guidelines: see the AGREE Instrument which outlines the framework for developing, reporting, and assessing clinical guidelines