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Evaluating Research

Once you have identified quality websites, next check to see if the information contained on those sites provides references to original research. Then to be very thorough you need to check the content and quality of the original research itself.

There are a number of ways of doing this. First, whenever it involves important medical decisions, it’s important to discuss the quality of the information you have found with your healthcare provider. In addition, you can take advantage of the expertise of those trained in evidence-based medicine who write critiques on various studies and syntheses that have been published. You can find their critiques in the resources provided in the Find: Synopses section. You can also learn how to critique the literature yourself using the approach outlined below or one of the other critical appraisal guides referenced at the end of this section.

Before we get started it’s important to recognize that studies and syntheses evaluate different aspects of healthcare such as:

Diagnosis

Treatment

Prevention

Risk (factors that affect outcomes that occur)

Prognosis (factors that predict what may occur)

Cost-effectiveness of care

There are also different types of syntheses and different study designs that evaluate the various aspects of healthcare. If you have not yet had a chance to do so, read the section on Classification of Medical Research (and then return here). It provides an overview of syntheses, including meta-analyses and practice guidelines and the hierarchy of individual study designs from the most rigorous to least: randomized controlled, cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies and case-series and case reports.

To simplify things here the following approach focuses on studies and syntheses around treatment. The references in the “Resources” section below provide information about evaluating research relating to treatment, as well as other aspects of health, such as diagnosis, prognosis, etc.

Three Areas of Consideration

Before you get started you want to be clear who sponsored study. Any vested interest should put you on alert and invite particularly close scrutiny around the issues presented below.

There are 3 areas to consider when evaluating studies and syntheses (5):

1. Is the research relevant?

2. Is the research believable?

3. What are the important findings?

Is The Research Relevant

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Evaluating Research

Three Areas of Consideration