Selection and critical appraisal of the best available evidence

Once the search is complete only studies and papers that address the clinical question should be considered for selection. Only the highest level and best quality studies that are relevant to answering the clinical question and have an impact on decision making and patient care should be included.

Evidence Summaries:

All studies and papers selected to be included in the Evidence Summary are required to have a formal, documented assessment of methodological quality using the relevant critical appraisal checklist as a guide for this process. Critical appraisal is a formal requirement for any literature to be included in a JBI evidence summary; and each article that meets the PICO driven inclusion criteria must be appraised and given an overall score of either, low, medium or high. A decision rubric is then applied by the writer; the aim is to include the most recent, highest level of good quality evidence that relates to answering the clinical question. Therefore, only articles that score medium or high will be included – with the exception that some topics completely lack high or medium quality research. In these exceptional cases, low quality evidence will be included, the quality of the evidence made clear for readers, and future updates will aim to focus on identifying improved quality research for the topic. JBI holds that low quality evidence that has been published in a peer reviewed source has been open to greater critique and public scrutiny than routine practice (in the absence of clinical review) and therefore may provide useful context which would otherwise not be accessible.  The critical appraisal checklists for clinical guidelines, systematic reviews, quantitative evidence, qualitative evidence and expert opinion are found in the Technical Development Report (TDR) template, which can be downloaded from the Resources, Forms and Templates page. The TDR for each topic will cumulatively report the appraisal results for each study reported in an evidence summary. As older papers, or those with findings that are superseded by higher quality studies are removed, the TDR will be updated with the newer appraisal reports, a new version of the TDR will be released and the original version will be archived but accessible by request.

Recommended Practices:

A recommended practice is developed and reviewed on the basis of the quality of evidence in the Evidence Summary, the importance of critical appraisal is therefore related to both Evidence Summaries and Recommended Practices.

Best Practice Information sheets:

Best Practice Information sheets are developed from a single, peer-reviewed, published JBI systematic review. No BPIS is considered for publication without internal review by academic and professional staff of JBI for quality and accuracy to the SR from which it is derived. See the section on peer review for further detail.