How to Review a Paper

It is helpful when appraising a randomised controlled trial, to approach it in a structured manner. To aid your appraisal, ask yourself the questions on the checklist below.

  • Why was the trial done? If the aims are unclear, irrelevant or unimportant to you, then you can stop here
  • Was the trial concerned with effectiveness or efficacy?
  • Was the trial pragmatic or explanatory?
  • What was the population in the study (and are they like my patients)?
  • What was the intervention and what was the control intervention (and is this what I do to my patients)?
  • What was the outcome and is this important? Have they used surrogate orcomposite outcomes?
  • How much blinding was there? Could the blinding have been broken?
  • Did randomisation work?
  • Did the authors lose any patients?
  • Was the study big enough?
  • How did the authors deal with confounding?
  • How did the authors deal with bias?
  • Is it possible that competing interests may have influenced the trial?
  • What do the results mean? (How much benefit does this intervention provide?)
  • Is this study internally valid? (Do you accept the findings from the study?)
  • Is this study externally valid? (Can I apply this to my own patients?)
  • How much does this cost?
2 Comments
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Dr Zafar Alam (Group Leader) November 18, 2022 at 10:06 pm

Excellent points

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