Pharmacy : Critical Appraisal

Critical appraisal explores the quality and reporting of clinical practice guidelines, observational studies, RCTs, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.

The use of critical appraisal tools requires more than simply checking off a box on a checklist! Critical appraisal requires that you have the skills to:

• Critically evaluate a paper, such as a cohort study
• Determine if a study's methodology is valid
• Determine if a study's valid results are important and applicable to your patient/population
• Observe the presence of bias and determine what this means

You can then apply the above skills to the critical appraisal tools highlighted on this page. Each of these critical appraisal tools is freely available online.

In your work, you will encounter many types of information, such as journal articles, books, and websites, and knowing how to evaluate information is key!