Pratt Guides: Systematic Reviews: Screening, Appraisal, & Analysis

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Appraisal tools should consider the reliability, importance and applicability of the clinical evidence found. According to the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine appraisal should consider these four questions:

Does this study address a clearly focused question?
Did the study use valid methods to address this question?
Are the valid results of this study important?
Are these valid, important results applicable to my patient of population?
From: https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/resources/ebm-tools/critical-appraisal-tools

AMSTAR Checklist
AMSTART( A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews) has created a checklist (includes a printer friendly version) to assess the validity of an article.
Best Bets Critical Appraisal Worksheets
BestBETs were developed in the Emergency Department of Manchester Royal Infirmary, UK, to provide rapid evidence-based answers to real-life clinical questions, using a systematic approach to reviewing the literature.
Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Systematic Review Critical Appraisal Worksheet
This PDF, created by The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM)-University of Oxford, takes you through a serious of questions to assess the validity of an article.
Critical Appraisal Skills Programme
This set of eight critical appraisal tools are designed to be used when reading research, these include tools for Systematic Reviews, Randomised Controlled Trials, Cohort Studies, Case Control Studies, Economic Evaluations, Diagnostic Studies, Qualitative studies and Clinical Prediction Rule.
Critical Appraisal Worksheets JAMAevidence
Available through Pratt Library JAMAevidence offers many tools including books on the systematic review process, critical appraisal worksheets , calculators and much more.
Joanna Briggs Institute - Critical Appraisal Tools
JBI’s critical appraisal tools assist in assessing the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published papers.
MECIR: Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews
These MECIR standards present a guide to the conduct and reporting of Cochrane Intervention Reviews. Each set of standards include links to Cochrane Training resources; the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions (the Handbook) and other resources will be added as they are developed.

There are many checklists available for free to assist with the appraisal of the evidence.

Anderson Center-Cincinnati Children's Appraisal Resources - Let Evidence Guide Every Decision (LEGEND)
This website is only available to Cincinnati Children's Employees and includes evidence evaluation tools, LEGEND, and other resources.
Anderson Center-Cincinnati Children's Evidence, Evaluation Tools and Resources
Publicly available tools and information developed by the Anderson Center at Cincinnati Children's.
Cochrane Collaborations
Tool for assessing risk of bias.
ROBINS-I
Risk of Bias in Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (also called ACROBAT-NRSI). Use these tools to test risk of bias.
Critical Appraisal Tools
JBI’s critical appraisal tools assist in assessing the trustworthiness, relevance and results of published papers.

GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations) is transparent way to evaluate the effectiveness of systematic reviews. Ratings range from high to very low and consider two types of studies; randomized controlled trials and observational studies.

Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE)
The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (short GRADE) working group began in the year 2000 as an informal collaboration of people with an interest in addressing the shortcomings of grading systems in health care. The working group has developed a common, sensible and transparent approach to grading quality (or certainty) of evidence and strength of recommendations. Many international organizations have provided input into the development of the GRADE approach which is now considered the standard in guideline development.
GRADE-CERQual (for Qualitative Systematic Reviews)
GRADE (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research): GRADE for qualitative systematic reviews to assess how much confidence to place in the findings.
Cochrane Training-GRADE
GRADE is a systematic approach to rating the certainty of evidence in systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses. Free online training is available from Cochrane on using GRADE. See the full list of training available.
Cochrane Training-Introduction to GRADE
This is a series of eight introductory slidecasts about using the GRADE approach to grade the evidence in systematic reviews and create a ‘Summary of findings’ (SoF) table. The slidecasts were prepared and narrated by Holger Schünemann and Nancy Santesso from the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact (formerly “Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics”), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
Cochrane Training-Common Errors: GRADE and interpretation of findings
This module covers identifying common errors in using the GRADE method to assess and present the quality of evidence in Cochrane Reviews. You will learn to suggest the ways to correct those errors. Click on the button below to start the course.
You must register for a **free** Cochrane Account to access this training.

The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM)
The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM)-University of Oxford offers many EBM tools including levels of evidence and an EBM Library with readings including a series on systematic reviews.
Dynamed Calculator
Login to Dynamed through Pratt Library and choose Calculators from the top menu and check out the left side menu for Clinical Criteria, Decision Trees, Statistics and more). One calculator example is Number Needed to Treat (NNT) from Odds Ratio (OR) and Patient Expected Event Rate (PEER).
EQUATOR: Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research
The EQUATOR Network is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of published health research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting and wider use of robust reporting guidelines.
Equator Reporting Guidelines Decision Tree
Use this tool to help decide the appropriate reporting guideline.
JAMAevidence
JAMA evidence offers many resources including an online textbooks on systematic reviews, critical appraisal worksheets, calculators and much more.
PROSPERO
PROSPERO, University of York, Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, is an international prospective register for systematic reviews.
SORT: Rating the Strength of Evidence via the American Family Physician EBM Toolkit
American Family Physician offers an Evidence Based Medicine toolkit recommended for anyone writing an SR for this journal.