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ZOOM
Healthcare Sciences – Research Methods Module
Critical Appraisal Assessment
Student guidelines
Assessment Aims
The assessment task has three principal aims, to assess your ability:
To revise and utilise the material covered by the Population Health and Evidence Based
Practice (PHEBP) lectures in year 1, and the more recent tutorials on Statistics and Critical
Appraisal (year 2).
To read and understand a research paper, extract the salient points and reach your own
conclusions as to the findings.
To write your answers succinctly and in grammatically correct and fluent English.
A summary of the taught material relevant to this assignment includes: –
Study design (in particular, the characteristic features of cohort studies & case-control
studies).
Confounding, particularly in relation to observational studies.
Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Statistical significance testing and the interpretation of p values.
Interpreting relative risks and 95% confidence intervals.
Assessment task & guidance
We would like you to read and reflect on a recent article that appeared in the journal Open Heart in
2018. The full paper reference is as follows: Rostron BL, Chang JT, ANIC GM, Tanwar M, Chang
CM, Corey CG. Smokeless tobacco use and circulatory disease risk: a systematic review and
meta-analysis.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2018-000846.
There is one statistical term in this paper that you will not have come across before and that you do
not need to understand (i.e. Cochran’s Q). Cochran’s Q is an alternative measure of study
heterogeneity to the I
2
statistic. Also, you do not need to know any details about the Newcastle-
Ottawa scale, other than as explained in the text of Question 5, it is used to score study quality
from 1 to 9, where the best studies would be scored 9 and the worst 1.
You will find the Question Sheet for the assignment on the relevant CANVAS page
https://canvas.sgul.ac.uk/courses/3078/assignments/21084 following the Critical Appraisal Tutorial
(which is scheduled for October 20
th
at 10:00am on TEAMS). There are a total of 13 questions.
You should answer all 13 questions.
Only include the answers in your submission. Do not
include the questions. Your submission must not exceed 1,800 words.
Each question is
followed by a word count range, to help you keep within the overall word count limit and to help you
gauge the amount of detail required in answering each question. We have also listed the number
of marks (out of a total of 91) awarded for each question.
