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?
Nice module
Excellent points