Appraise the Information - Student Report - EBM Exercise - LibGuides at Ohio State University-Health Sciences Library

Select an Article

After the Librarian has sent you a collection of articles, it is your job to look through the resources and select one or two articles that answer your question.

When selecting an article, you do not need to perform a full critical appraisal; however, you will want to consider its relevance to your question and the strength of its evidence. Below are some questions you might want to ask yourself:

What is the study design used in this article?
Is this an appropriate study design for my question?
Where does this study design fall in the Evidence Pyramid?
Was the study well-designed?
What is the possibility that bias might be affecting the results?
What do the statistics or results really mean?
Are they statistically significant? Clinically significant?
What are the weaknesses of this article or study?
Would the results of this study affect how I might approach the patient?

After selecting an article, you will send that title and citation information back to the Librarian.

Levels of Evidence

Publication types are ranked in evidence pyramids based on the rigor of evidence provided by the research design.

When searching for evidence, be sure to consider what type(s) of publication will have the information you are looking for, as well as where that publication or study type falls within this pyramid.

You want to aim for as high a level of evidence as you can. However, not every topic will have a systematic review available, so you will then need to work your way down.

Levels of Evidence Pyramid

Evidence-Based Medicine: Study Design
This guide from MD Anderson discusses different study designs and provides guidance on which study designs are best to answer different types of questions.

Understanding Biostatistics

The following resources can help you make sense of the statistics that may appear in your selected article:

JAMA Evidence
Includes full content from the second edition of *Users’ Guides to the Medical Literature* and the *JAMA Guide to Statistics and Methods*, as well as education guides, a glossary of EBM terms and definitions, calculators, worksheets, and other tools to aid in understanding and applying the medical literature and making clinical diagnoses. This resource is for use only by academic faculty, staff, and students, and is not for use in hospitals or clinics.

Studying a Study and Testing a Test by Richard K. Riegelman
Publication Date: 2020

A package of textbook, interactive exercises, and real research articles designed for use alongside Journal Clubs. It employs a step-by-step framework to help students and residents recognize a meaningful study, identify potential study flaws, and apply solid evidence in clinical decision making.
Epidemiology and Biostatistics by Bryan Kestenbaum
Publication Date: 2018

Concise, fast-paced, intensive introduction to clinical research design for students and clinical research professionals Readers will gain sufficient knowledge to pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination part I section in Epidemiology
Biostatistics and Epidemiology by Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller; Jordan Smoller
Publication Date: 2015

Since the publication of the first edition, Biostatistics and Epidemiology has attracted loyal readers from across specialty areas in the biomedical community. Not only does this textbook teach foundations of epidemiological design and statistical methods, but it also includes topics applicable to new areas of research. Areas covered in the fourth edition include a new chapter on risk prediction, risk reclassification and evaluation of biomarkers, new material on propensity analyses, and a vastly expanded chapter on genetic epidemiology, which is particularly relevant to those who wish to understand the epidemiological and statistical aspects of scientific articles in this rapidly advancing field. Biostatistics and Epidemiology was written to be accessible for readers without backgrounds in mathematics.