A lovely picture of some of the participants (some were very camera shy!) that attended our recent CASP International Training Week. We all had an enjoyable week and CASP trainers are already looking forward to next years event. Date for the diary:19th-23rd May 2014. See here for more details.

It’s time all clinical trial results are reported. Patients, researchers, pharmacists, doctors and regulators everywhere will benefit from publication of clinical trial results. Wherever you are in the world please sign the petition:

Thousands of clinical trials have not reported their results; some have not even been registered.

Information on what was done and what was found in these trials could be lost forever to doctors and researchers, leading to bad treatment decisions, missed opportunities for good medicine, and trials being repeated.

All trials past and present should be registered, and the full methods and the results reported.

Sign the All Trials petition here…..

“Is the evidence I found good enough?”
Not all published literature is scientifically sound. Only some is valid, sound and useful.
That means some literature is invalid and ineffectual.

Do you know how to tell the difference?
How can you decide if the evidence you find is good enough? The answer: critical appraisal of the research evidence.

What is critical appraisal?
“The process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge its trustworthiness, value and relevance in a particular context” (from Amanda Burls, today’s advisor on tap).

Are there tools or checklists that can help?
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme’s (CASP) developed tools with checklists specifically designed to appraise:
•    Systematic reviews
•    Randomized controlled trials (RCTs)
•    Qualitative research
•    Economic evaluation studies
•    Cohort studies
•    Case control studies
•    Diagnostic test studies
All critical appraisal tools consist of three sections to assess internal validity, results and relevance to practice.

See here for more details on how to join:
http://www.chnet-works.ca/index.php?option=com_rsevents&view=events&layout=show&cid=143%3Aspotlight-on-knowledge-translation-methods-and-tools-3&Itemid=6&lang=en

Please do let us know what you like about this video and what would make it better. This has been produced with no funding and the author, Dr Amanda Burls, declares that she has no financial or other conflict of interest.