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Critical Appraisal: Home

The provided library guide will help nursing students and young scholars to get acquainted with the tools for criticizing and appraising scientific articles for academic integrity in the process of writing their own research paper.

Importance of Critical Appraisal

For scholars, there is a high necessity to use the best evidence-based practice in their clinical research questions. For the formulation of research question, we ask a searchable clinical question. Then we do literature review to collect articles. At this moment, it is important to appraise the collected evidences for many criteria. This step builds your reputation and reflects the academic integrity. Later, we apply the filtered evidence with clinical expertise. Lastly, we need to evaluate the efficiency of the process.

1. Ask a clinically important question;
2. Find some literature that help answer to your question;
3. Appraise the unfiltered information;
4. Apply the filtered information with clinical expertise;
5. Evaluate the efficiency of the process.

Reference: 

Lobiondo-Wood, G. & Haber, J. (2014). Nursing research: Methods and critical appraisal for evidence-based practice (7th ed.). Elsevier.

Level of Evidence

A research scholar has to choose the highest level of evidence: systematic reviews and meta-analysis. The following evidences were critically appraised and checked for many criteria. If the evidence has not pass the critiquing appraisal step, then the information becomes unfiltered. A scholar has to recognize that high levels of evidence may not exist for his/her clinical research question, then a he/she must go down the pyramid and critically appraise the unfiltered articles by yourself.

level of evidence

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  • Meta-Analysis  A systematic review that uses quantitative methods to summarize the results.
  • Systematic Review  An article in which the authors have systematically searched for, appraised, and summarised all of the medical literature for a specific topic.
  • Critically Appraised Topic  Authors of critically-appraised topics evaluate and synthesize multiple research studies.
  • Critically Appraised Articles  Authors of critically-appraised individual articles evaluate and synopsize individual research studies.
  • Randomized Controlled Trials  RCT's include a randomized group of patients in an experimental group and a control group. These groups are followed up for the variables/outcomes of interest.
  • Cohort Study  Identifies two groups (cohorts) of patients, one which did receive the exposure of interest, and one which did not, and following these cohorts forward for the outcome of interest.
  • Case-Control Study  Involves identifying patients who have the outcome of interest (cases) and control patients without the same outcome, and looking to see if they had the exposure of interest.
  • Background Information / Expert Opinion   Handbooks, encyclopedias, and textbooks often provide a good foundation or introduction and often include generalized information about a condition.  While background information presents a convenient summary, often it takes about three years for this type of literature to be published.
  • Animal Research / Lab Studies  Information begins at the bottom of the pyramid: this is where ideas and laboratory research takes place. Ideas turn into therapies and diagnostic tools, which then are tested with lab models and animals.

Adapted from: LibGuides: Evidence-Based practice for health professionals: Levels of evidence by Northern Virginia Community College

Relationship between Critical Appraisal and Academic Integrity

Critical Appraisal consists of the validity, trustworthiness of results and relevance. These values are also indicators of Academic Integrity in the research world. In other words, the academic integrity is not only about copying and pasting someone's work, but also it covers the reliability of the author's work. By acquiring this skill, the person may be able to critically distinguish between the good- and bad-quality work.

Related Libguides

Credit

This libguide was developed within the MIL program 2022 by Kurmet Danebek.

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