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Evidence-Based Practice: Step 3: Appraise

An introduction to Evidence-Based Practice, based on the five steps

Step 3: Appraise the evidence

What is Critical Appraisal?

Once you have asked the clinical question and searched for evidence, you need to appraise the evidence. This helps to:

  • cut down on information overload
  • find studies relevant to your situation
  • reject studies which have scientific flaws.

 

There are a number of tools and checklists that are available (and free) to help with critical appraisal. Please note that, just as the type of question being asked (therapy, aetiology, diagnosis etc) might determine the type of study or research (RCT, case study, cohort study etc) being used or sought, the type of study or research might in turn determine the process of critical appraisal.

For this reason, there are different checklists available for the different types of research. See the page in this guide on Critical appraisal tools.

This section includes pages on:

  • What is being appraised?
  • Freely available critical appraisal tools
  • More resources on Appraising the Evidence.

Straus, S. E., Glasziou, P., Richardson, W. S., & Haynes, R. B. (2011). Evidence-Based Medicine: How to practice and teach it (4th ed.). Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier.

Subjects: Research Support

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