© 2001 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. & Royal College of Nursing
EBN users' guide
Evaluation of systematic reviews of treatment or prevention interventions
1 School of Nursing Faculty of Health Sciences McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
2 Centre for Evidence Based Nursing Department of Health Studies University of York York, UK
3 Health Information Research Unit McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
In a previous article in this series we explained how the critical appraisal of research is an essential step in evidence-based health care because most published research is too poor in quality to be applied to clinical practice.1 Critical appraisal is made easier through the use of quality checklists that can help you to appraise research studies systematically and efficiently. The 3 basic appraisal questions are the same whether the clinical question is about treatment, diagnosis, prognosis, or causation:
- Are the results of the study valid?
- What were the results?
- Will the results help me in caring for my patients?1–3
The first 2 articles in the EBN users' guide series focused on critical appraisal of primary studies of treatment or prevention.1,2 This guide will deal with critical appraisal of systematic reviews, beginning with a clinical scenario and applying the appraisal questions to the review by Glazener and Evans on the
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