Appraise the relevant evidence to determine the strength.
These Tools or Checklists Can Help Appraise the Evidence:
| STUDY DESIGN/METHODOLOGY | EXAMPLES OF APPRAISING TOOL/CHECKLISTS |
| Systematic Reviews | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) |
| Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) FRISBE (Follow-up, Randomization and concealed allocation, Intention-to-Treat, Similar baseline characteristics, Blinding, Equal treatment, Equivalence to your patient) |
| Cohort Studies | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) |
| Case Control Studies | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) |
| Qualitative studies | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) |
| Diagnostic Studies | Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) |
Reporting guidelines, "a simple, structured tool for health researchers to use while writing manuscripts" listed by study type.
Equator Network: http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/stard/
| STUDY DESIGN/METHODOLOGY | EXAMPLES OF APPRAISING TOOL |
| Randomized Trials | CONSORT |
| Observational Studies | |
| Systematic Reviews | PRISMA |
| Case Reports | CARE |
| Qualitative research | SRQR |
| Quality Improvement Studies | SQUIRE |
| Study Protocols | SPIRIT |
Xiong GL, Adams J. FRISBEE: Does the study fly in the face of evidence
based medicine? The Journal of Family Practice. 2007 Dec; 6(12). Available from:
http://www.jfponline.com/Pages.asp?AID=5760
| Independent Variable - the component of an experiment that is controlled by the researcher (for example - a new therapy). |
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Dependent Variable - the component of an experiment that changes, or not, as a result of the independent variable (for example - the existence of a disease). |
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Reliability - the extent to which the results of the study are replicable. The research methodology should be described in detail so that the experiment could be repeated with similar results. A measure of consistency. |
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Validity - the extend to which a research tool measures what it is proposed to measure. Internal Validity - the extent to which the study demonstrated a cause-effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables. External Validity is the extent to which one may safely generalize from the sample studied to the defined target population and to other populations. Source: University of Chicago (2022). Appraising the evidence. https://researchguides.uic.edu/c.php?g=252564&p=3977326 |