Critical appraisal is the systematic evaluation of clinical research papers in order to establish:
Does this study address a clearly focused question?
Did the study use valid methods to address this question?
Are the valid results of this study important?
Are these valid, important results applicable to my patient or population?
If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, you can save yourself the trouble of reading the rest of it.
This section contains useful tools and downloads for the critical appraisal of different types of medical evidence. Example appraisal sheets are provided together with several helpful examples.