Critical Appraisal
Critical appraisal is the process of judging the validity and quality of a research paper.
Major points to consider when appraising include:
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Is the study valid?
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What are the results, and are they significant?
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Are the results applicable?
Critical Appraisal Tools
Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)
Ten questions to help you make sense of a systematic review
CASP Critical Appraisal Checklists
Includes checklists for Randomised Controlled Trials, Systematic Reviews, Qualitative Studies, Cohort Studies, Diagnostic Studies, Case Control Studies, Economic Evaluations and Clinical Prediction Rule.
AMSTAR 2
A critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both
STROBE Checklists
Designed for epidemiological studies
Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) checklists
JBI’s critical appraisal tools assist in assessing the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published papers.
Further Reading
Crowe, M., & Sheppard, L. (2011). A review of critical appraisal tools show they lack rigor: alternative tool structure is proposed. Journal of clinical epidemiology, 64(1), 78-89. Full Text
Buccheri, R. K., & Sharifi, C. (2017). Critical appraisal tools and reporting guidelines for evidence‐based practice. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based Nursing, 14(6), 463-472. Full Text
Greenhalgh, T. (1997). How to Read a Paper series.
The Medline database. BMJ, 315(7101), 180-183. Full Text
Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about). BMJ, 315(7102), 243-247. Full Text
Assessing the methodological quality of published papers. BMJ, 315(7103), 305-308. Full Text
Statistics for the non-statistician: different types of data need different statistical tests. BMJ, 315(7104), 364-366. Full Text
Statistics for the non-statistician. II:“Significant” relations and their pitfalls. BMJ, 315(7105), 422-425. Full Text
Papers that report drug trials. BMJ, 315(7106), 480-483. Full Text
Papers that report diagnostic or screening tests. BMJ, 315(7107), 540-543. Full Text
Papers that tell you what things cost (economic analyses). BMJ, 315(7108), 596-599. Full Text
Papers that summarise other papers (systematic reviews and meta-analyses). BMJ, 315(7109), 672-675 Full Text
Papers that go beyond numbers (qualitative research). BMJ, 315(7110), 740-743. Full Text
