Critical Appraisal Of Quantitative Research

Tutors: Dr Yoav Ben-Shlomo.

Download the booking form.

Duration: One day.

Dates: 26 January 2010.

Course Fee: £180.

Course aims and objectives: To provide participants with a structured basis for critically appraising quantitative research papers.

By the end of the course students should be able to:

• give a structured appraisal of a published quantitative research paper identifying its strengths and weaknesses;
• describe the main quantitative research methodologies;
• identify sources of bias and confounding in published papers;
• have the confidence to act as a journal reviewer.

Who the course is intended for: Clinicians, healthcare decision makers and researchers. A basic understanding of randomised trials and observational research methods would be an advantage but is not essential.

Teaching Time: Seven hours consisting of short lectures and practical sessions in which participants will critically review 3-4 published papers. Papers and teaching materials will be distributed in advance to enable participants to familiarise themselves with the papers forming the basis of practical sessions.

Suggested pre-course reading:

• Hunt DL. Jaeschke R. McKibbon KA. Users' guides to the medical literature: XXI. Using electronic health information resources in evidence-based practice. Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group. JAMA 2000; 283 (14): 1875-9 and others in this series.
• Greenhalgh T. How to read a paper. Papers that report drug trials. BMJ 315; 305-8: 1997.
• Greenhalgh T. How to read a paper. Statistics for the non-statistician. II: "Significant" relations and their pitfalls. BMJ 315; 422-5: 1997.
• Greenhalgh T. Assessing the methodological quality of published papers. BMJ 315: 305-8:1997.
• Greenhalgh T. How to read a paper. Statistics for the non-statistician. I: Different types of data need different statistical tests. BMJ 315: 364-6;1997.
• Greenhalgh T. How to read a paper. Getting your bearings (deciding what the paper is about). BMJ 243-6:1997.

For further information: please contact short-course@bristol.ac.uk