Information Literacy, STEMM

Critical Appraisal Tools for Health Research

What is Critical Appraisal?

The process of critically appraising a study for validity and applicability is a daunting one – not only for students but for professionals as well. Critical appraisal is “the skill to criticize medical [or scientific] literature and decide if results are credible or not” (Dans et al., 2017). Critical appraisal is an important part of the Evidence-Based Medicine skill set, and informs the process of application, wherein researchers and practitioners determine if a study is relevant and may inform their research or specific patient care. 

Components of Critical Appraisal

Critical Appraisal can be broken down into three main components: 

  1. Is the study related to my inquiry? Is what or who has been studied similar enough to the issue or population that I’m studying or treating? Here we consider population, exposure, and outcomes measured. 
  2. Is the study valid? Was the study conducted and reported in a manner that aligns with best practices? Here we consider study type and design, as well as potential flaws in design and reporting. This component is often referred to as “Risk of Bias Assessment.” 
  3. Understanding the results. Do the results meaningfully indicate a relationship, effect, etc., in line with the goals of the study? Here we consider reported numbers such as “relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction, sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio, odds ratio,and hazard ratio.” (Dans et al., 2017)

As stated above, the process of critical appraisal prepares us for determining applicability. We must understand if the study is related to our inquiry, valid, and what the results mean before we can decide if it is applicable to our research question or patient. 

Tools for Conducting Critical Appraisal

There are many study designs, and within each one many ways that results may be analyzed and reported. As a result it would be nearly impossible for the average practitioner or any student to know how to appraise the various types of studies they will come across in their research. Fear not, they don’t need to! There are many critical appraisal tools- essentially worksheets- available to aid in this process. Below, find a list of select critical appraisal tool collections that you may turn to next time you’d like to consider the applicability and validity of a study. 

Bibliography

Dans, A.L., Dans, L.F. and Silvestre, M.A.A. (2017). Introduction. In Painless Evidence-Based Medicine (eds A.L. Dans, L.F. Dans and M.A.A. Silvestre). 10.1002/9781119196150.ch1

Samantha Walsh, Research Services Librarian, CUNY Hunter College

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