Critical Appraisals Flashcards
1
Q
To study a disease prognosis, what is the best study design?
A
Cohort study
2
Q
To study a disease aetiology, what is the best study design?
A
Cohort study
Population based cohort study
3
Q
To study a disease treatment, what is the best study design?
A
RCTs and Systematic Reviews of RCTs
4
Q
To study a disease diagnostic method, what is the best study design?
A
Cross-sectional analytic study
5
Q
What are the positives of Systematic Reviews?
A
- Find results of studies with relevant inclusion / exclusion data
- Include unpublished work
- Includes ALL evidence
- Includes non-English work
- Increases sample size
- Indicates variation between studies
- Allows sub-group analysis
- Allows sensitivity analysis
6
Q
In Medline searches, what does the asterisk (*) denote?
A
Truncation
7
Q
What is the definition of bias?
A
Systematic introduction of error which distorts results in a non-random way
8
Q
What does the phrase “Study validity” mean?
A
Believe-ability / credibility of results
9
Q
Outline the ten steps of the CASP checklist to Critically Appraise evidence
A
- Clearly focused question?
- Right type of study included?
- Was all studies included?
- Quality assessment tool?
- If combined results, is this reasonable?
- How are results presented?
- Are results precise?
- Can results apply to population?
- Were all outcomes considered?
- Should policy change because of this?
