yigityildiz0 Physio Study Appraisal
Mandatory first reads
Read safety core and design and appraisal map. Appraising a study does not validate it for a specific patient. If the request contains urgent clinical features, stop the appraisal-to-treatment handoff and escalate first.
Workflow
- Verify identity and status. Confirm title, authors, year, journal, DOI/PMID, version, correction/retraction/expression of concern, registration, protocol, funding, and conflicts. If live verification is unavailable, label publication/correction/retraction/registration status not live-verified, appraise only the supplied packet, and list the exact checks still required; never infer current status from the PDF alone.
- Determine the actual design. Infer design from methods—not the title or author label. Extract the causal/diagnostic/prognostic/measurement question and unit of allocation/analysis.
- Collect the full evidence packet. Use full text, supplement, protocol, statistical analysis plan, registry, and linked reports when available. Label abstract-only, paywalled, missing-supplement, and offline-status limitations separately.
- Separate reporting from validity. CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, STARD, TRIPOD, and RIGHT assess reporting. Apply a design-appropriate risk-of-bias or methodological tool separately.
- Audit the sample. Source population, sampling, eligibility, representativeness, baseline imbalance, sample-size calculation, attrition, exclusions, and vulnerable populations omitted.
- Audit intervention/index and comparator. Components, provider, standardization, study dose, adherence, fidelity, contamination, co-interventions, reference standard, and implementation context.
- Audit outcomes. Prespecification, hierarchy, construct, instrument/version/language, validity, time point, assessor blinding, selective reporting, and multiplicity.
- Audit analysis. Estimand, analysis population, missing-data assumptions, clustering/repeated measures, model assumptions, baseline adjustment, multiple testing, interaction tests, sensitivity analyses, and overfitting.
- Interpret effect and uncertainty. Point estimate, 95% interval, absolute and relative effect, scale direction, clinical threshold, responder analysis, harms, burden, and precision. A p value is not a quality or benefit score.
- Apply the method tool transparently. For every domain, show the source passage/location, rationale, judgment, and missing information. Do not make a confident judgment without the required material.
- Assess transportability. State which people, setting, provider, dose, equipment, follow-up, and co-interventions match—and which do not.
- Give a bounded clinical implication. Classify as supports, conditionally supports, does not change, or argues against practice. Do not prescribe from one paper alone.
Clinical importance
When MIC/MCID is used, verify construct, instrument/version/language, population, baseline severity, follow-up, direction, anchor, method, and uncertainty. Distinguish MDC/SDC from MIC/MCID. A mean group difference is not an individual response rate.
Harms
Check how adverse events were defined, solicited, adjudicated, timed, denominated, and reported; whether withdrawals were harm-related; and whether high-risk groups were excluded. Not reported is not none occurred.
Output
- One-sentence verdict: what the study shows and does not show
- Study map
- Main effects, uncertainty, clinical meaning, and harms
- Design-appropriate domain judgments with evidence locations
- Statistical audit
- Reporting gaps versus validity threats
- Applicability and excluded/high-risk groups
- Limitations and missing information
- Practice implication and required corroborating evidence
- Publication status and direct sources
Never collapse reporting quality, risk of bias, certainty of a body of evidence, clinical importance, and applicability into one “scientific quality score.”