Synopses & Reviews
Making Sense of Critical Appraisal provides all the necessary information on how to read and understand medical research publications critically and to decide whether the contents of such publications are clinically useful in the care of patients. Illustrated throughout with medically relevant examples, this text covers all aspects of study design and clinical audit to give a clear framework for critical reading. Key Features: * Provides a framework for practicing evidence-based medicine *Easy-to-use exam-oriented text covers the key aspects of critical appraisal * Highly readable with simple explanations and memorable clinical examples * Study design includes prospective, retrospective, randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews * Includes a glossary of epidemiological and statistical terms and definitions * A special 'non-essential statistics' section to explore the statistical concepts in more detail
Review
"This is an important contribution to the field of evidence-based medicine. It is a well written, easy to understand, follow, and use, small handbook that I plan to keep in my pocket whenever reading the medical literature from now on." --Colorado Council of Medical Librarians
Review
"This is an important contribution to the field of evidence-based medicine. It is a well written, easy to understand, follow, and use, small handbook that I plan to keep in my pocket whenever reading the medical literature from now on." --Colorado Council of Medical Librarians
Table of Contents
Contents: Introduction
Basic statistics
Relevant study design issues
Critical appraisal of studies on screening on diagnostic tests
Critical appraisal of cross-sectional surveys
Critical appraisal of prospective studies
Critical appraisal of retrospective studies
Critical appraisal of randomized clinical trials
Handling survival time data
Critical appraisal of systematic reviews
Critical appraisal of clinical audit
Critical appraisal of economic evaluations
Critical appraisal of qualitative studies
Glossary