| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Critical Appraisal in the United Kingdom | p. 2 |
| How To Improve Critical Appraisal Skills | p. 2 |
| How To Use This Book | p. 3 |
| |
| Basic Concepts | p. 7 |
| Argument | p. 8 |
| Appraising Medical Evidence | p. 9 |
| Probability | p. 11 |
| Set and Subset | p. 11 |
| Random Experiment | p. 12 |
| Sample Space | p. 12 |
| Event and Probability | p. 13 |
| Classical Approach To Probability | p. 16 |
| Frequentist Approaches to Probability | p. 16 |
| Conditional Probability | p. 17 |
| Bayes' Theorem | p. 19 |
| Subjective Approaches To Probability | p. 19 |
| Proportions and Percentages | p. 21 |
| Odds, Odds Ratio and Log Odds | p. 21 |
| Summary | p. 23 |
| Variables and Measurement | p. 25 |
| Variable | p. 25 |
| Measurement | p. 28 |
| Summary | p. 30 |
| Measurement Instruments | p. 31 |
| Case | p. 31 |
| Qualitative Aspects of Measurement | p. 32 |
| Quantitative Aspects of Measurement | p. 34 |
| Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Analysis | p. 40 |
| Summary | p. 41 |
| Sampling and Design | p. 43 |
| Population and Sample | p. 43 |
| Sampling | p. 44 |
| Study Design | p. 50 |
| Observational Studies | p. 51 |
| Experimental Design | p. 52 |
| Summary | p. 54 |
| Bias | p. 57 |
| General Points | p. 57 |
| Bias | p. 58 |
| Confounding | p. 60 |
| Summary | p. 60 |
| Distributions | p. 63 |
| Frequency Distributions | p. 63 |
| Functions | p. 64 |
| Central Tendency | p. 66 |
| Shape | p. 67 |
| Partition | p. 70 |
| Spread, Variability or Variation | p. 71 |
| Sampling Distribution | p. 73 |
| Summary | p. 74 |
| Binomial and Normal Distributions | p. 75 |
| Binomial Distributions | p. 75 |
| Normal Distributions | p. 77 |
| Summary | p. 81 |
| Hypothesis Testing | p. 83 |
| General Principles: Statistical Models | p. 83 |
| Steps in Hypothesis Testing | p. 85 |
| Final Comments | p. 91 |
| Summary | p. 92 |
| Errors and Sample Size | p. 93 |
| Errors | p. 93 |
| Sample Size | p. 101 |
| Summary | p. 103 |
| Estimation | p. 105 |
| General Points | p. 105 |
| Sampling Distribution and Standard Error | p. 106 |
| Estimators | p. 108 |
| Bias | p. 109 |
| Precision | p. 109 |
| Confidence Intervals | p. 110 |
| Summary | p. 112 |
| Epidemiology | p. 115 |
| General Concepts | p. 115 |
| Measures of Disease Frequency | p. 115 |
| Measures of Association | p. 118 |
| Standardisation | p. 120 |
| Epidemiological Studies | p. 124 |
| Summary | p. 128 |
| |
| Introduction to Critical Appraisal of Medical Literature | p. 133 |
| General Points | p. 133 |
| How To Practice Critical Appraisal | p. 135 |
| Specific Points | p. 136 |
| Other Considerations | p. 138 |
| Critical Appraisal of Different Study Designs | p. 139 |
| Descriptive or Observational Studies | p. 139 |
| Experimental Studies | p. 141 |
| Papers on Treatment | p. 143 |
| More Issues on Validity | p. 143 |
| Importance | p. 144 |
| Usefulness | p. 147 |
| Papers on Diagnosis | p. 149 |
| More Issues on Validity | p. 149 |
| Importance | p. 150 |
| Usefulness | p. 153 |
| Papers on Prognosis | p. 155 |
| Preliminary Concepts | p. 155 |
| Description and Analysis | p. 158 |
| More Issues on Validity | p. 159 |
| Importance | p. 160 |
| Usefulness | p. 161 |
| Papers on Aetiology | p. 163 |
| More Issues on Validity | p. 163 |
| Importance | p. 164 |
| Usefulness | p. 166 |
| Review Papers | p. 169 |
| Notes on Reviews | p. 169 |
| Meta-analysis | p. 171 |
| Appraisal | p. 176 |
| Validity | p. 176 |
| Importance | p. 176 |
| Usefulness | p. 177 |
| Papers on Guidelines | p. 179 |
| Notes on Guidance | p. 179 |
| Validity | p. 179 |
| Importance | p. 180 |
| Usefulness | p. 180 |
| Papers on Audit | p. 183 |
| Notes on Audit | p. 183 |
| Validity | p. 184 |
| Importance | p. 185 |
| Usefulness | p. 185 |
| Papers on Qualitative Research | p. 187 |
| Notes on Qualitative Research | p. 187 |
| Appraisal | p. 189 |
| Summary | p. 191 |
| General Points | p. 191 |
| Specific Points | p. 192 |
| |
| The z- Test and the t-Test | p. 199 |
| The z-test | p. 199 |
| The t-test | p. 202 |
| Examples | p. 208 |
| Summary | p. 210 |
| Analysis of Variance | p. 211 |
| General Points | p. 211 |
| One-way Anova | p. 211 |
| Two-way Anova | p. 216 |
| Three-way Anova | p. 220 |
| Multivariable Analysis of Variance | p. 220 |
| Related Measures Anova and Manova | p. 220 |
| Example | p. 221 |
| Summary | p. 222 |
| Non-Parametric Tests | p. 223 |
| The Chi-square Test | p. 223 |
| Fisher's Exact Probability Test | p. 227 |
| The Mann-Whitney Test For Two Independent Samples | p. 228 |
| The Wilcoxon Test | p. 230 |
| Kruskal-Wallis H-test For More Than Two Samples | p. 231 |
| Examples | p. 232 |
| Summary | p. 233 |
| Correlation, Regression and Prediction | p. 235 |
| Correlation | p. 235 |
| Regression and Prediction | p. 240 |
| Multiple Prediction | p. 243 |
| Example | p. 247 |
| Summary | p. 248 |
| Multivariable Analysis | p. 249 |
| Principal Component Analysis and Factor Analysis | p. 249 |
| Discriminant Analysis | p. 256 |
| Examples | p. 261 |
| Summary | p. 262 |
| Other Statistical Techniques | p. 265 |
| Analysis of Covariance (Ancova) | p. 265 |
| Logistic Regression Analysis | p. 271 |
| Examples | p. 276 |
| Summary | p. 278 |
| References | p. 281 |
| Index | p. 285 |
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