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University Library Services

Subject Guide: Nursing, Allied Health & Sport

This guide brings together library resources for your studies and research. Use these resources alongside your recommended reading from your tutors to extend your research into new areas.

"Critical Appraisal is the process of carefully and systematically examining research to judge its trustworthiness, and its value and relevance in a particular context. It is an essential skill for evidence-based medicine because it allows people to find and use research evidence reliably and efficiently" (CASP, 2023)

Tools and Checklists

When you critically appraise a paper you will scrutinise it in order to objectively evaluate the quality and validity of it's conclusions and it's findings, and check for any bias. This is usually done through a series of pre-designed questions, which are also known as checklists. The specific questions used change slightly with different study designs. There are various sets of questions / checklists which are freely available online. Here are some good quality options:

For further guidance on how they are structured, take a look at the guide on how to use our CASP checklists.

Books for Critical Appraisal

There are many books available in the library with more detailed information and guidance on critical appraisal. Often there will be a chapter or section about critical appraisal in a book about research or evidence-based practice. Here is a selection of books to get you started:

Critical Appraisal Skills Programme [CASP] (2023) What is Critical Appraisal? Available at: https://casp-uk.net/what-is-critical-appraisal/ (Accessed: 15 August 2023)