Critical appraisal

Books

The Library has a number of print and e-books on critical appraisal.

Training

Introduction to Critical Appraisal: How to read a paper

Covers: the evidence hierarchy; study types; peer review; and basic statistics.

Useful for: anyone who makes decisions based on research papers.

If you're doing research, auditing or just interested in learning how to read and understand journal articles better, contact the library today by email or phone!

Websites

Centre for Evidence Based Medicine: lots of information and critical appraisal tools, including on Levels of Evidence.
Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP): provides various tools and checklists for appraising different types of research.
Cochrane: Evidence Essentials (free online course).
Advanced evaluation information provided by The Open University.
BestBETs: includes a database of critical appraisals undertaken by other people. It includes a variety of different critical appraisal checklists.
CONSORT - transparent reporting of trials.
CRAAP Test - for assessing websites, books, articles and a range of resources.
Critical thinking and Appraisal Resource Library (CARL)
HealthKnowledge: an online course on finding and appraising the evidence.
How to spot fake news
Making sense of statistics
Students4BestEvidence: critical appraisal checklists.
Testing Treatments: key concepts for critical thinking about treatment claims.
Understanding health research: a toolkit guiding you through a series of questions to help you to review and interpret a published health research paper.