Appraising Appraising Relevant Overview or Meta-Analysis - Therapy questions

Are the results applicable to my patients?

Were the clinically important outcomes reported?

Were absolute risk data reported for dichotomous outcomes ?

What was the number needed to treat for the important dichotomous outcomes?

Are the overall results clinically significant?

Would these patients?

Did the treatment cause harm which might outweigh the benefit for my patient(s)?

Overall: Does this study answer the original clinical question and is the answer meaningful?

If this study is does not answer the original question or if the answer is not meaningful after the above appraisal, then toss out the study and proceed to the next one.

If the answer to the above overall question is YES, then write a C.A.T. so the rest of us don't need to look this up again for a while.

RETURN TO MAIN MENU