Experience of Teaching Critical Appraisal of Scientific Literature to Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students at the Ziauddin Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan

Background: Critical appraisal of scientific literature is an integral part of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM). Many medical practitioners have either limited or no formal education in research and are inadequately prepared to critically analyze the quality of research they are reading. This study presents the instructional strategy, students' evaluation and the feedback of the undergraduate and postgraduate students on teaching critical appraisal of published medical literature to undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Ziauddin Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Subjects: Two batches of undergraduate medical students of Year-3 (n = 85) and a group of (n = 18) postgraduate students in basic sciences, community health sciences and family medicine.

Methods: After 170 hours of teaching of biostatistics, epidemiology and survey methodology in Year-1 & 2, in Year-3 of undergraduate curriculum, six 2-hour structured sessions for critical appraisal of research articles published in peer reviewed journals were held.

Results: All (N=103) students who took the course appeared in the objective structured practical examination (OSPE), where out of 100 they scored 74.3 ± 9.1. The studentds' feedback on a 5-point Likert's scale questionnaire showed the mean of overall satisfaction of the students is 3.93, and appreciation of relevance of quantitative subjects to understand medical literature is 4.89. All respondents agreed and strongly agreed the course helped them appreciate the relevance of quantitative subjects to understanding of medical literature

Discussion: This course should be considered as the first step in the journey of becoming a competent self learner and should be followed by courses on EBM.