Checklist as a tool for critical reading of published research papers

Abstract

The growth of scientific knowledge requires health professionals to form a habit of reading medical journals with minimum skills of comprehension, analysis and criticism in order to enrich the exercise of continuous updating. Learning the basics of epidemiology plays a very important role at the time of reading a medical publication; from the analytical point of view, it is important to understand the basis of this branch of medicine that allow to generate a critique of what we read with grounds. A check list is a useful test for the evaluation through observation (in this case the reading of a document), which enumerates the characteristics, aspects, qualities, etcetera, whose presence (or absence) we aim to determine. It is a list of comparison (material) to be applied while reading medical publications (method); an objective tool to facilitate the understanding and analysis. This list is divided into five essential sections: an overview of the publication, type of study, methodology, presentation and interpretation of results, as well as the discussion and conclusions of the publication. It is imperative to develop capacities to evaluate critical aspects that allow us using valid information and then integrating them to our knowledge. Far from seeking to shorten the fundamentals and basic concepts of basic epidemiology, biostatistics and research methodology, this is an invitation to the reader of medical journals to take a close look at the fascinating field of these branches of medicine through the references.