National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR)
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Introduction to Health Services Research : A Self-Study Course
Module 5: Quality Filtering and Evidence-Based Medicine and Health (page 12 of 15)
Introduction | Sampling | Assignment | Assessment | Analysis | Interpretation | Extrapolation
Analyzing the Literature for Quality
When preparing to analyze the literature, use these questions as a guide to evaluating each paper as is shown in the research cases. (Questions are also organized in a table for you to use in that format).
Study Question:
- What is/are your study question or questions?
Study Design:
- What kind of study design was used?
- Was the study design appropriate for this research question?
- more on
- Sample:
- Who was studied?
- Is there an appropriate number of people in the sample?
- What was the sample size?
- more on Samples and sampling
- Assignment:
- Were the people in the study assigned to groups?
- What groups were compared?
- Examine the table that describes the people in each group. Check to see that they are similar in age, socioeconomic status, health characteristics, and others (excluding the factors being studied).
- Were confounders indicated? How were they dealt with?
- more on Assignment
- Assessment:
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- How will these patient outcomes be defined and measured?
- Are measurements accurate and complete?
- Is there any evidence of recall bias?
- Is there any indication of "measurement errors"?
- Is the data complete and suitable for measuring the question?
- If the researchers compared outcomes of specific procedures across hospitals were the patients similar? Case-mix might be different in different hospitals.
- more on Assessment
Analysis:
- Analysis will answer three main questions
- How strong was the association between variables?
- What is the likelihood of getting the results from the sample if there was no relationship between variables in the larger population from which the sample came?
- Were the groups in the study different in any way that could affect the results?
- more on Analysis
Interpretation:
- Was a causal relationship supported by the data?
- What was the relative risk?
- Was the association consistent across different groups?
- more on Interpretation
Extrapolation:
- Have the authors of the studies you found generalized too much from their data?
- Have the authors extend the data farther than the data supports?
- more on Extrapolation
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