How to Efficiently Read and Critically Appraise a Research Paper

Name: How to Efficiently Read and Critically Appraise a Research Paper
Start: 2025-04-08T18:00:00+00:00
End: 2025-04-08T19:00:00+00:00

8th Apr 2025

6:00 - 7:00pm (GMT)

Medicine

Public Health

8th Apr 2025

6:00 - 7:00pm (GMT)

Hosted on MedAll

Attendance certificate available

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Free

ONLINE

Description

This session guides learners through a practical approach to reading and critically appraising medical research papers—an essential skill in Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). Using a real-world cohort study on artificial sweeteners and cardiovascular disease (CVD), the session breaks down each section of a research paper and teaches how to assess its validity, relevance, and reliability.

Key concepts such as hazard ratios, confounding factors, bias, study design limitations, and mediation analysis are explained clearly. The session also highlights how to distinguish statistical vs. clinical significance and evaluate the external validity of findings.

Whether you're preparing for a research project, clinical audit, or just want to make sense of published papers more confidently, this session provides a solid foundation.

Summary

This event introduces a step-by-step approach to reading and critically appraising medical research papers, using a real-world cohort study on artificial sweeteners and cardiovascular disease as the central example.

The session focuses on how to:

Identify key elements of a study (design, methods, results, and limitations) Understand and interpret hazard ratios, confounding factors, and bias Distinguish between statistical and clinical significance Explore tools like mediation analysis and evaluate external validity It’s ideal for medical students and early-career researchers aiming to improve their confidence in appraising evidence and applying it in clinical and academic settings.

Learning objectives

By the end of this session, learners will be able to: ✅ Understand the structure of a cohort research paper and how to navigate it efficiently ✅ Identify strengths and limitations in study methods, including bias and confounding ✅ Interpret key statistical outputs like hazard ratios and confidence intervals ✅ Evaluate whether study findings are statistically and clinically significant ✅ Apply the principles of critical appraisal to improve evidence-based practice

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