Tools and guides
Helpful tools, guides, websites, and books to increase your understanding of critical appraisal and how to use it in your research and clinical practice.
Critical appraisal tools and guides
- Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)NHS Public Health Resource Unit website provides many resources developed by the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) to help with the process of critically appraising articles.
- Critical Appraisal tools - Centre for Evidence-Based MedicineUniversity of Oxford has developed tools and downloads for the critical appraisal of medical evidence, with examples.
- EBM ToolkitCollection of tools for identifying, assessing and applying relevant evidence for better health care decision-making from the University of Alberta.
- Introduction to evidence-based practiceOnline tutorial by the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Health Sciences Library.
- Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Manual for Evidence SynthesisPublished 2020. Provides guidance to authors for the conduct and preparation of JBI systematic reviews and evidence syntheses.
- National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelinesNHMRC guidelines are intended to promote health, prevent harm, encourage best practice and reduce waste.
- PRISMAmay also be useful for critical appraisal of published systematic reviews, although it is not a quality assessment instrument to gauge the quality of a systematic review.
- TESTEX scaleScale provided on Page 12
Smart, N. A., Waldron, M., Ismail, H., Giallauria, F., Vigorito, C., Cornelissen, V., & Dieberg, G. (2015). Validation of a new tool for the assessment of study quality and reporting in exercise training studies: TESTEX. JBI Evidence Implementation, 13(1). https://journals.lww.com/ijebh/Fulltext/2015/03000/Validation_of_a_new_tool_for_the_assessment_of.3.aspx - Understanding Health ResearchTrying to make sense of health research?
This tool will guide you through a series of questions to help you to review and interpret a published health research paper.
