Critical Appraisal Resources
Critical appraisal is the process of carefully and systematically assessing the outcome of research studies to judge their trustworthiness, value and relevance. Critical appraisal enables you to look at the way a study was conducted and examine factors such as internal validity, generalisability and relevance. Acquiring critical appraisal skills and adopting them in to your everyday practice will enable you to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
We currently run individual and group Critical Appraisal training sessions that cover the basics of critical appraisal and how to evaluate a research paper. Please complete our training request form or email clinical.librarian@ulh.nhs.uk to find out more information.
Please find below a list of workshops and resources that can help you with the process of critically appraising a research article.
Critical Appraisal eLearning
There is a eLearning for Healthcare (elfh) course available on critical appraisal. There are 8 sessions available with each topic taking approximately 30 minutes to complete.
Critical Appraisal Workshops
Throughout the year we regularly run critical appraisal workshops for staff working at United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (ULTH), Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) or Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS).
BestBETs
This resource has checklists for appraising a wide range of study designs (e.g. cohort, decision rule, economic, screening).
Critical Appraisal of a RCT using a CASP Checklist
Barts Health Knowledge and Library Services have produced a series of YouTube videos relating to each of the questions on the CASP checklist for RCTs.
CASP (Critical Appraisal Skills Programme)
There are 8 CASP checklists which cover: systematic reviews, randomised controlled trials (RCTs), cohort studies, case control studies, diagnostic test studies, qualitative research, economic evaluation studies and clinical prediction rules.
CEBM (Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine)
Critical appraisal worksheets for systematic reviews, diagnostic studies, prognosis studies and RCTs can be found on the CEBM website.