Critical appraisal of biomedical literature with a succinct journal club template: The ROOTs format

Abstract

Journal clubs are a valuable tool to assist pharmacists in the evaluation of biomedical literature and to promote adoption of evidence-based practices. The concise ROOTs (relevance, observe validity, obtain clinically significant results, and translate results to clinical practice) method was developed to help simplify and provide structure to any journal club process. Although there are a variety of recommended practices on how to conduct journal clubs using a variety of questions and checklists, many are cumbersome and difficult to complete and present in less than 30 minutes. The concise ROOTs journal club format may be beneficial for clinicians to help them develop an efficient and consistent means to appraise evidence in clinical practice. A sample completed ROOTs template, utilizing the 2015 IMPROVE-IT trial, is provided to further assist in utilizing the template.