Covering concepts of title, abstract, introduction, authors and literature review

1. Critical appraisal:
Title, abstract, introduction,
authors, literature review Dr. S. A. Rizwan, M.D.
Public Health Specialist
SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

2. Learning objectives
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Critically appraise the following elements
of a research article:
• Title
• Abstract
• Authors
• Introduction & literature review
2

3. Section 1: Title
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh

4. Introduction
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• How nice it would be if we can “Just look at
the title and decide if it’s worth the read”
• Title - Conveys what we can expect from the
article
• A mild exaggeration, however, can be
deceptive
• What is the research question?
4

5. Importance of title in an article
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• How we critically appraise the TITLE of an article
depends on the type of study (study
design/epidemiological method)
• Helps us assess “what was planned, what was
done, what was found and what conclusions
were drawn”
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6. The PICOS approach to title
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• All that you need to identify /frame the
right research question
• P - Patient or population of interest
• I - Intervention being evaluated
• C - Control /Comparison group
• O - Outcome measured
• S - Study design
6

7. Title in observational studies
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Title for observational studies (STROBE)
• Easily identify the design that was used from the title.
• An explicit & commonly used term for the study design for correct
indexing of articles in electronic databases
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8. Ex. title in observational studies
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
1. Leukaemia incidence among workers in the
shoe and boot manufacturing industry: a case-
control study”
2. Early childhood feeding practices and dental
caries in preschool children: a multi-centre birth
cohort study
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9. Title in RCTs
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Title for RCTs (CONSORT)
• Indexers may not classify a report as RCT if the
authors do not explicitly report this information
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10. Ex. title in RCTs
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
1. Prophylactic hydration to protect renal
function from intravascular iodinated contrast
material in patients at high risk of contrast-
induced nephropathy (AMACING): a
prospective, randomised, phase 3, controlled,
open-label, non-inferiority trial
2. Exenatide once weekly versus placebo in
Parkinson's disease: a randomised, double-
blind, placebo-controlled trial
10

11. Title in SRMA
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Title for SRMAs (PRISMA)
• Many systematic reviews contain meta-
analyses, but not all.
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12. Ex. title in SRMA
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
1. Prevalence of hypertension in Indian
tribes: a systematic review and meta-
analysis of observational studies
2. Smokeless Tobacco and Oral Potentially
Malignant Disorders in South Asia: A
Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
12

13. Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Equator Network: overview of
reporting guidelines
• STARD Statement: Standards for
Reporting Studies of Diagnostic
Accuracy
• MOOSE Statement: meta analyses of
observational studies in epidemiology
• STARLITE Statement: Standards for
Reporting Literature searches
• QUADAS-2: Quality Assessment of
Diagnostic Accuracy Studies
13

14. Section 2:
Abstract
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh

15. Ways of writing an abstract
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Unstructured abstracts
• Structured abstracts
• Higher quality and more readily
informative than unstructured
summaries
• Series of headings:
• Background, Design, Conduct and
Analysis, Results, Conclusion
• Keywords, MeSH
15

16. STROBE Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Should provide key information that enables
readers to understand a study and decide
whether to read the article
• Typical components:
• Statement of the research question
• Short description of methods
• Results & conclusion
16

17. STROBE Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Should only present information that is provided in the article
• Key results to be presented in a numerical form (eg: odds ratios with
confidence intervals)
• It is insufficient to state only that an exposure is or is not significantly
associated with an outcome
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18. CONSORT Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Clear, transparent and sufficiently detailed abstracts are
important for readers to
• Assess the quality of the trial & relevance of the findings
• Use the abstract as a screening tool to decide whether to read
the full article
• Retrieve relevant reports from electronic databases
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19. CONSORT Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Objective - Provide optimal information about the trial within the space
constraints and format of a journal
• Should not include information that does not appear in the body of the
paper
• Omitting important harms from the abstract could seriously mislead
one’s interpretation of the trial
• Use of structured abstracts - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
• Design, conduct, analysis and interpretation, conclusions, Trial
registration number
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20. PRISMA Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Should enable readers to understand the scope, processes and findings
of the review
• Help them to decide whether to read the full report.
• Sometimes , abstract may be all that is readily available to a reader in a
bibliographic database
• Objective - Brief report of the main text as a STRUCTURED SUMMARY
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21. PRISMA Reporting guidelines
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Provide a structured summary including
• Background
• Objectives
• Data sources
• Study eligibility criteria
• Participants
• Interventions
• Study appraisal and synthesis methods
• Results
• Limitations
• Conclusions and implications of key findings
• Funding for the systematic review
• Systematic review registration number
21

22. Section 3:
Authors
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh

23. Questions on author credibility
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• What are the author's credentials--institutional affiliation
(where he or she works), educational background, past
writings, or experience?
• Is the book or article written on a topic in the author's
area of expertise?
• Biographical information located in the publication
• Have you seen the author's name cited in other sources
or bibliographies? Respected authors are cited frequently
by other scholars
• Is the author associated with a reputable institution or
organization? What are the basic values or goals of the
organization or institution?
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24. Questions on author credibility
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh 24

25. Questions on author credibility
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh 25

26. Questions on author credibility
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh 26
*A Comprehensive
Survey of Retracted
Articles from the
Scholarly Literature,
Grieneisen, Zhang

27. Section 4:
Introduction &
literature review
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh

28. Introduction requirements
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• It leads the reader from a general subject
area to a particular topic of inquiry
• It establishes the scope, context, and
significance of the research
• Summarizing current understanding and
background information about the topic
• Stating the purpose of the work in the form
of the research problem supported by a
hypothesis or a set of questions
28

29. Introduction requirements
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• The introduction is the broad
beginning of the paper that answers
three important questions for the
reader:
• What is this?
• Why should I read it?
• What do you want me to think
about/ consider doing/ react to?
29

30. General phases of introduction
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
1. Establish an area to research by:
• Highlighting the importance of the topic
• Making general statements about the topic
• Presenting an overview on current research on
the subject
2. Identify a research niche by:
• Opposing an existing assumption
• Revealing a gap in existing research
• Formulating a research question or problem
• Continuing a disciplinary tradition
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31. General phases of introduction
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
3. Place your research within the research niche by:
• Stating the intent of your study
• Outlining the key characteristics of your
study
• Describing important results
• Giving a brief overview of the structure of
the paper
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32. Literature review
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• A literature review may consist of
simply a summary of key sources, but
in the social sciences, a literature
review usually has an organizational
pattern and combines both summary
and synthesis, often within specific
conceptual categories
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33. Literature review
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• The analytical features of a literature review might:
• Give a new interpretation of old material or combine new
with old interpretations,
• Trace the intellectual progression of the field, including
major debates,
• Depending on the situation, evaluate the sources and
advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant
research
• Usually in the conclusion of a literature review, identify
where gaps exist in how a problem has been researched
to date
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34. Literature review
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• The purpose of a literature review is to:
• Place each work in the context of its contribution
• Describe the relationship of each work to the
others
• Identify new ways to interpret prior research
• Reveal any gaps that exist in the literature
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly
contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way for additional research
• Locate your own research within the context of
existing literature
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35. Literature review
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Common mistakes made:
• Sources in literature review do not clearly relate to
the research problem
• Not defining the most relevant sources to use in the
literature review related to the research problem
• Relies exclusively on secondary analytical sources
rather than including relevant primary research
studies or data
• Uncritically accepts another researcher's findings
• Reports isolated statistical results rather than
synthesizing them
• Only includes research that validates assumptions
and does not consider contrary findings
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36. Take home messages
Critical appraisal of health literature SBCM, Joint Program – Riyadh
• Title, abstract and introduction help the
reader to decide whether to read the full
paper or not
• And hence their importance
• If you know what to look for in these
elements, you will use them when writing
a paper yourself
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37. Thank you!
Email your queries to sarizwan1986@outlook.com