BookMark Elwood, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Summary: Critical appraisal is now accepted as central to the development of rational health care and evidence-based medicine, by applying it to questions of aetiology, clinical therapy, and health care management. The reader will learn how to assess the strengths and weaknesses of new studies, and how to conduct their own studies.
Contents:
Introduction
The importance of causal relationships in medicine and health care
Study designs which can demostrate and test causation
The results obtained from studies of causation
Selection of subjects for study
Error and bias in observation
Confounding
Chance variation
Combining results from several studies: systematic reviews and meta-analyses
The diagnosis of causation
Critical appraisal in action
Critical appraisal of a randomized clinical trial
Critical appraisal of a randomized trial of a preventive agent
Critical appraisal of a prospective cohort study
Critical appraisal of a retrospective cohort study
Critical appraisal of a matched case-control study
Critical appraisal of a large population-based case-control study.