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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Avicenna J Med 2017; 07(02): 46-50
DOI: 10.4103/2231-0770.203611
REVIEW ARTICLE

Are these results trustworthy? A guide for reading the medical literature

Fares Alahdab
Evidence-based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
,
Allison Morrow
Evidence-based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
,
Mouaz Alsawas
Evidence-based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
,
M Hassan Murad
Evidence-based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship Nil.
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Abstract

Physicians practicing evidence-based medicine need to be able to appraise a new study and determine whether the results warrant sufficient certainty to the level that they can be applied to patient care. Without such appraisal, misleading results can be incorporated into patient care, which can lead to inefficient, costly, and possibly harmful care. The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach offers a modern framework that can be applied to evaluate the trustworthiness of evidence. In this guide, we present a simplified approach based on GRADE; in which we call on readers of the medical literature to pay attention to six domains before making an overall judgment about the trustworthiness of results and before applying the evidence to patient care.

Keywords

Assessment - critical appraisal - Development and Evaluation framework - evidence-based medicine - Grading of Recommendations - medical education


Publication History

Article published online:
09 August 2021

© 2017. Syrian American Medical Society. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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