A practical educational tool for teaching child-care hospital professionals attending evidence-based practice courses for continuing medical education to appraise internal validity in systematic reviews
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Published on: January 16, 2019
1Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, IRCCS, Rome, Italy. paola.rosati@opbg.net
Rationale, Aims And Objectives:
Having a quick, practical, educational tool designed for busy child-care professionals to check whether systematic reviews (SRs) contain valid information would help them regularly update their evidence-based knowledge and apply it to their patients. Continuing our annual workshop courses encouraging paediatric hospital professionals to use evidence-based information, in a preliminary study, we compared the commonly used Critical Appraisal Skill Programme (CASP) questionnaire for appraising overall internal validity in SRs with a new, practical tool designed to check internal validity quickly.
Method:
During a course in 2010, two 'teacher-brokers' taught experienced paediatric hospital professionals to use and compare the CASP and the new practical tool to appraise a Cochrane SR on beclomethasone for asthma in children by assessing internal validity only from the two most weighted randomized controlled trials in the forest plot. At 15 days and 6 months, participants then answered questionnaires designed to assess qualitative data including feelings about working together, memorization and possibly provide feedback for Cochrane reviewers.
Results:
Using the CASP, participants agreed that the Cochrane SR analysed contained overall valid results. Conversely, using the new quick tool, they found poor internal validity. Participants worked well together in a group, took less time to apply the new tool than the CASP (1 vs. 2.5 hours) and provided Cochrane feedback.
Conclusions:
Our quick practical tool for teaching critical appraisal encourages busy child-care hospital professionals to work together, carefully check validity in SRs, apply the findings in clinical practice and provide useful feedback for Cochrane reviewers.
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