- CAMeL Critical Appraisal Protocols
We have borrowed heavily from Sackett et al and Greenhalgh
in the creation of the guidelines that follow. For more extensive explanation, please see the references.
The type of article you have chosen will be directed by the question you have constructed. Try to place
the article into the most appropriate category. Note that articles may be appropriately placed in more
than one category and should be evaluated from both aspects. For instance, you may have chosen a systematic
review on diet therapy for coronary artery disease. In that case, the article would need to meet the
quality specifications for both a review article and an article on therapy.
The following protocols will help you make judgments about the article that you have chosen. Each article
is evaluated in 2 dimensions: 1) validity of the methods (Methods Evaluation) and 2)
relevance, importance, or clinical significance of the findings (Outcomes Evaluation).
Just because an article achieves statistical significance (Methods) does not mean that it
means anything important or makes a difference for your patient (Outcomes or Clinical
Significance).
Section VI, which follows, gives an overview of statistics and some ways that
authors sometimes try to manipulate statistics to their own advantage. However, statistics are only a
small part of the evaluation of an information resource.
- Questions to Evaluate a Study Whose Primary Objective is to Evaluate a Therapy
Methods Evaluation
- Was the assignment of patients to treatments *randomized?
- Did the randomization work; that is, were the groups really the same?
