When reading the results of research there are two important elements to consider: relevance and validity.
Relevance
Asking yourself whether or not these findings apply to your patient or question can help you decide whether or not to continue with your appraisal. Some questions you may ask:
- Does this study have a focused research question related to my clinical question?
- Does the study population include people like my patient?
- Does the study measure a meaningful, patient-oriented outcome? What is the effect size?
- Would the results of this study change or support the care plan?
Validity
Considering methodological rigor and sources of possible bias should be part of deciding whether or not to use evidence to support your clinical decision. Some relevant questions:
- Who funded the research? Who wrote the paper? What are their affiliations?
- Did the authors state the research question, measures, and methods before carrying out the research? Perhaps they registered a research protocol. Did they acquire approval from an ethics board?
- How large was the study population? Was it representative of the population affected by the studied phenomenon? Were the experimental and control groups similar?
- Were the participants randomized? Were they blinded? Were the researchers blinded?
- Did the methods make sense for the stated question? Were the statistical measures used appropriate? Were the findings statistically significant? How large was the effect size?
- How many people were lost to follow-up? Were they included in the findings? Did it affect the validity of the results?
- Has this article been critically-appraised in a synopsis (such as ACP Journal Club, Evidence-Based Practice (Journal), the NNT, or EvidenceAlerts) or in a systematic review or meta-analysis?
