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Systematic Reviews

Systematic reviewing

Critical Appraisal

There are a number of tools and checklists available to help assess the quality of studies to be included in a review. Studies included in a systematic review should be assessed for their quality and only good and reliable studies should be included.

Checklists

 

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A number of bodies involved in reviewing have developed very useful checklists which allow rapid appraisal of the quality of articles to be made.

CASP (link opens in new window) — Critical Appraisal Skills Programme includes checklists for systematic reviews, RCTs, qualitative studies etc.
RoBiS (link opens in new window) — Risk of Bias in Systematic Reviews
RoB 2 (link opens in new window) — Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials
AACODS (link opens in new window)— Checklist for appraising grey literature
Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (link opens in new window): tools and downloads for critical appraisal.
Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tools (link opens in new window)

Books

These are some books which you might find useful when critically appraising research.

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