critical appraisal of RCTs Flashcards
why should we critically appraise
clinicians and policy makers need to determine validity and relevance of research studies
and consider whether clinical practice/policy should change as a result
what is critical appraisal
process of systematically examining research evidence to determine its trustworthiness, value and relevance
in practice it onvolves answering a series of questions and formulating an overall opinion of quality and relevance of a piece of research
what is internal validity
the extent to which a conclusion can be reached
can the findings be otherwise explained by chance, bias, confounding etc
what is external validity
the extent to which study findings can be generalised to other settings
how to test internal validity of an RCT
what is research Q and is RCT correct methodology?
was assignment to treatment groups randomised? if so how was it done?
how similar were treatment groups at baseline?
was the study blinded? if so who was blinded?
aside from allocatedtreatment, were both groups treated the sane throughout the study?
what was the primary outcome? was is relavent and pre-specified?
was analysis statistically significant? how precise was the estimate? were assumptions of the sample size calculation met?
what does CASP stand for
critical
appraisal
skills
programme
