ANAL YSING A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

ANAL YSING A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

The simplest way to analyse an article from a scientific journal is to look at the checklist of requirements for good scientific research. A group of scientists and editors developed the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement to improve the quality of reporting of RCTs. Looking in detail at the study design is often the best way of deciding whether a trial is of value. The CONSORT document includes a checklist for the conduct of good RCTs ( Table 13.3 ). Often clinicians overlook biases that others find obvious to detect, which can have a profound influence on the outcome of any study . Even the randomised design does not always guarantee quality , and a core component of systematic review is the grading of trial quality; several scoring systems have been developed (e.g. Jadad score). Recent guidelines have been published formalising the methods of systematic review and meta-analysis (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] guidelines), and also many other types of article. These can be found in the instruc tions to authors of most surgical journals, which will now only accept articles that follow those rules. ANAL YSING A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

The simplest way to analyse an article from a scientific journal is to look at the checklist of requirements for good scientific research. A group of scientists and editors developed the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement to improve the quality of reporting of RCTs. Looking in detail at the study design is often the best way of deciding whether a trial is of value. The CONSORT document includes a checklist for the conduct of good RCTs ( Table 13.3 ). Often clinicians overlook biases that others find obvious to detect, which can have a profound influence on the outcome of any study . Even the randomised design does not always guarantee quality , and a core component of systematic review is the grading of trial quality; several scoring systems have been developed (e.g. Jadad score). Recent guidelines have been published formalising the methods of systematic review and meta-analysis (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] guidelines), and also many other types of article. These can be found in the instruc tions to authors of most surgical journals, which will now only accept articles that follow those rules. ANAL YSING A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE

The simplest way to analyse an article from a scientific journal is to look at the checklist of requirements for good scientific research. A group of scientists and editors developed the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement to improve the quality of reporting of RCTs. Looking in detail at the study design is often the best way of deciding whether a trial is of value. The CONSORT document includes a checklist for the conduct of good RCTs ( Table 13.3 ). Often clinicians overlook biases that others find obvious to detect, which can have a profound influence on the outcome of any study . Even the randomised design does not always guarantee quality , and a core component of systematic review is the grading of trial quality; several scoring systems have been developed (e.g. Jadad score). Recent guidelines have been published formalising the methods of systematic review and meta-analysis (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] guidelines), and also many other types of article. These can be found in the instruc tions to authors of most surgical journals, which will now only accept articles that follow those rules.