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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 12a of 15)
Introduction | Sampling | Assignment | Assessment | Analysis | Interpretation | Extrapolation

 

EBP Form for Evaluating the Literature

Category
Response
(Put your responses to each of the questions in the spaces below).

Study Question

  • What is your study question or questions?
 

Study Design

 
Sample
  • Who was studied?
  • What was the sample size? Is this an appropriate number of people for the project?
  • 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
  • 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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