Evaluating relevance

We feel that evaluating the relevance of a study is the first step in critically reading a paper. This directly relates to whether you can (or should) apply the results of the paper to the care of your patients. One of the first questions you should ask is whether the treatment is feasible. If you can’t do it or refer a patient for it, the treatment is irrelevant to your practice, and you can ignore the paper.

You also need to consider whether the study is generalizeable to your patients. A common criticism of clinical trials is they include a narrow spectrum of disease and patients. You should also see if the authors included all the important clinical outcomes. You may need to grant some license, though. For instance, a study of a drug given to twenty year olds to prevent cardiovascular disease might need several decades of follow up before deaths are likely to occur. The author should also provide enough information so you can weigh the benefits of the treatment against its risks.