PLEASE NOTE: This session is for PHE employees.

If you work in a Local Authority Public Health Team please visit https://phelibrary.koha-ptfs.co.uk/laph/ for information on services available for you.

Objectives

By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Explain why critical appraisal is important.
• Describe how critical appraisal fits in to the cycle of evidence-based practice.
• List the key elements of a systematic review.
• Recognise the presence (and absence) of these elements in a systematic review.
• Use critical appraisal to evaluate a systematic review.
• Have increased confidence in reading and interpreting research evidence, to use in decision making.

Content

• Importance of critical appraisal
• Evidence-Based Practice Cycle and Hierarchy of Evidence
• Types of study design
• Key elements of a good systematic review
• Some (very basic) statistics
• Individual or small-group appraisal of a paper using a checklist
• Full-group discussion