Example critical appraisal of systematic review

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine in Oxford (UK) provides tools to develop, teach and promote evidence-based health care. Has useful tools and downloads for the critical appraisal of medical evidence. Example appraisal sheets are provided together with several helpful examples.

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)

The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) helps people to find and interpret the best available evidence from health research.

The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for assessing the quality of nonrandomised studies in meta-analyses

This scale was developed to assess the quality of nonrandomised studies with its design, content and ease of use directed to the task of incorporating the quality assessments in the interpretation of meta-analytic results.

AMSTAR2 (A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews)

AMSTAR2 is an updated version of AMSTAR. It is a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both.

The Revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2)

RoB 2 is the revised (version 2) Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials. It is the recommended tool to assess the risk of bias in randomized trials included in Cochrane Reviews.

The ROBINS-I tool (Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies - of Interventions)

The ROBINS-I tool is based on the Cochrane RoB tool for randomized trials. It is used to evaluate the risk of bias (RoB) in the results of non-randomized studies of interventions (NRSI) that compare the health effects of two or more interventions.

Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT)

A checklist that was designed to provide a quality appraisal tool for quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods studies included in systematic mixed studies reviews

The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Tools

Developed by the JBI and collaborators to assess the methodological quality of different study designs for systematic reviews..

Critical appraisal is the process of judging the validity and quality of a research paper.

Major points to consider when appraising include:

• Is the study valid?
• What are the results, and are they significant?
• 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

Owen CMChalmers RJO'Sullivan TGriffiths CE Antistreptococcal interventions for guttate and chronic plaque psoriasis. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2000;2CD001976Google Scholar

How do you write a critical appraisal in a systematic review?

There are three separate elements that contribute an appraisal:.

the quality and relevance of the methods used to address the review questions;.

the quality and relevance of the methods used by the individual studies included in the review;.

the nature and extent of the total evidence from studies included in the review..

What is the best appraisal tool for systematic reviews?

AMSTAR 2: a critical appraisal tool for systematic reviews that include randomised or non-randomised studies of healthcare interventions, or both.

What is critical appraisal in research example?

Critical appraisals of published studies address three questions: Are the study's results valid? What are the results? Will the results help in caring for my patient?

Is a critically appraised topic a systematic review?

A summary of the current best evidence on a topic, generally by topic experts. Critically appraised topics (CAT's) usually include evidence from more than one study, but are more brief and their methods less rigorous than systematic reviews. A summary of a single paper, generally by a topic expert.