1. Introducing critical appraisal -- 2. Questions to ask when reading a paper -- 3. Identifying the research method -- 4. Interpreting the results -- 5. Introduction to the check lists -- 6. The standard appraisal questions -- 7. Appraising surveys -- 8. Appraising cohort studies -- 9. Appraising clinical trials -- 10. Appraising case-control studies -- 11. Appraising review papers
Summary
"This concise guide to the assessment of medical research is designed to accompany every library visit. The first section of the book introduces the rationale behind critical appraisal, discusses the questions to be asked of each section of a paper and identifies the common pitfalls in published research." "The second section tackles the five main genres of medical research in detail: surveys, clinical trials, cohort studies, case control studies, and review papers." "Each method is given a comprehensive one page checklist to aid the reader in assessing the methodological quality and clinical relevance of published studies. Experienced researchers will be able to rely on the checklists alone as an aide-memoire, but all of the checklist questions are expanded and discussed in the accompanying text."--BOOK JACKET