Abstract

OBJECTIVE
Psychiatrists and other physicians sometimes read publications superficially, relying excessively on abstracts. The authors addressed this problem by teaching critical appraisal of individual articles.
METHOD
The authors developed a 23-item appraisal instrument to assess articles in the area of psychopharmacology. The results were collected with an electronic voting system. A discussion of each of the item followed; tutors shared their views and provided key ratings.
RESULTS
Six publications were evaluated in the course of three workshops by a total of 58 trainees. Evaluation of the papers yielded varying results, reflecting variations of the participants' theoretical background as well as varied quality of the publications. The authors present detailed analysis of one paper as an illustrative example.
CONCLUSION
The discussion format and voting stimulated active participation of the trainees. Active involvement, facilitated by the structured assessment tool, followed by feedback with discussion, may enhance the learning process.

Links

Publisher Full Text

Authors

Mohr P, Höschl C, Volavka J

Institution

Clinical Division, Prague Psychiatric Center, Praha, Czech Republic. mohr@pcp.lf3.cuni.cz

Source

Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry 36:2 2012 Mar 1 pg 114-7

MeSH

Feedback
Humans
Learning
Periodicals as Topic
Psychopharmacology

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Language

eng

PubMed ID

22532200