Evidence Based Health Care

Now that you have located some search results, it's time to decide which articles will be useful. The first questions to ask yourself are:

• Does this study provide data that could answer my question?
• Is the study new enough to be relevant?
• Are the study participants simliar to my patient?If you answer yes to all of these, then it's time to begin your critical appraisal.

Critical appraisal is the systematic evaluation of clinical research article in order to decide:

• Does this article present research that was conducted to answer a clearly focused question?
• Did the research team use valid methods to collect data with which to address this question?
• Are the results of this study valid and presented without excessive bias?
• Are the results of this study important? Do they present new findings or confirm previous findings?
• Are these valid, important results applicable to my patient or population?

The pyramid of evidence is a tool that is used to place information sources in a hierarchy of information quality. 

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