CRITICAL APPRAISAL TOOLS FOR QUALITATIVE SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS IN MEDICAL EDUCATION.

Abstract

The Problem and Gap: Critical appraisal of qualitativesystematic reviews continues to be an underdevelopedfield in medical education. There is great confusionregarding the choice of the most suitable tool forappraising such reviews.The Hook: In-depth understanding of the existingcritical appraisal tools (CATs) is expected to help thedevelopment of a new and more comprehensive toolthat would better guide the process of qualitativesystematic reviews appraisal.MethodsA systematic search strategy was employed and ameticulous literature search was undertaken. Thefollowing search engines were used: PubMed, GoogleScholar and ERIC. A thematic analysis of the finallyincluded articles was performed to determine commonthemes and subthemes about critical appraisal ofqualitative systematic reviews. The available CATswere critically assessed.ResultsThe common themes identified included quality of thestudy, its design, standards of reporting, rigor of thereview and trustworthiness. An extended new tool wasdeveloped in an attempt to address the needs of a robustqualitative review, keeping in mind the essentialstandards of scientific rigor, trustworthiness andcompleteness of the evidence.ConclusionThe new tool that resulted from the current researchincludes a comprehensive range of criteria necessary forthoroughly reviewing qualitative systematic reviews.The tool will help future researchers to achieve theirobjective of appraising the reviews in a more thoroughand structured fashion