ELearning Critical Appraisal is now available on Training Tracker on the Intranet at http://geh.trainingtracker.co.uk/
Develop the necessary skills, to understand scientific evidence, in terms of validity, results, and relevance.
The ELearning Critical Appraisal package will take you through the process of how to Critically Appraise Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) using CASP Tools through answering a series of questions. It will help you to identify your PICO, Population, Intervention, Control and Outcome. You will be asked whether randomisation was used in the assignment of study participants, and if there was any blinding. You will have to look at the similarity of groups, called baseline characteristics, such as age, sex, social class, co-morbidities and will have to consider if they were treated equally during the experiment. It is also important to consider if the participants were analysed in the groups in which they were randomised (Intention to Treat or ITT) or if participants adhered to protocol during the entire clinical trial (Protocol analysis). Again, all the participants who entered the study have to be properly accounted for at its conclusion.
The ELearning will also help you to analyse results by considering: whether the outcomes were properly measured, the results for each outcome and whether there was no bias. You will learn some critical Appraisal terminology and also perform simple statistical calculations. You will go through an exercise to complete a table for the Experimental Event Rate (EER) and Control Event Rate (CER) and be able to calculate Relative Risk, Relative Risk Reduction, Absolute Risk Reduction, and the Number Needed to Treat (NNT). In looking at the results you will need to consider how precise the treatment effect was by considering the p values as well as the confidence interval. Finally you will need to consider if the results can be applied locally in terms of the population, nature of intervention, adverse effects, and cost.
For more details on Critical Appraisal or to book a training session, please either visit the library or contact Hammer Bamhare (Clinical Librarian hammer.bamhare@geh.nhs.uk Tel: 02476 86(5464)