What is critical appraisal ?

Critical appraisal is the process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge its trustworthiness, and its value and relevance in a particular context. G The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme aims to help people develop the necessary skills to make sense of scientific evidence, and has produced appraisal checklists covering validity, results and relevance. G Different research questions require different study designs. The best design for studies evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention or treatment is a randomised controlled trial. G Studies are also subject to bias and it is important that researchers take steps to minimise this bias; for example, use of a control group, randomisation and blinding. G Odds ratios, risk ratios and number needed to treat are methods of analysing results in order to determine if an intervention is effective.