What
is it?
The Evidence Hierarchy
is a pyramid that aims to represent the relative quality of evidence, the
hierarchy, that can be determined from various study types. It is suggested
that not all evidence is the same, with different study types being subject to strengths,
weaknesses, flaws and biases.
The study types listed
at the top of the pyramid are considered to provide better quality evidence
than those at the bottom.
There are a variety of
different definitions of what is included in the pyramid and there is even some
contention as to how useful it is.
You can find a
helpful definition from the blog Students4BestEvidence.
Key
Features
One of the key things to
remember is that the pyramid is only giving you a representation of the quality
of the study design, not whether the
article you are looking at is “good” or “poor”. You will still need to
critically appraise the research paper – for example you may be looking at a
randomised controlled trial, but if it has not been carried out well, the
article may not be helpful for you.
eTutorial
You can try our
etutorial Evidence Hierarchy to learn more about the evidence hierarchy. We
also include the description of some common study types.
More
help?
You find more about the
evidence hierarchy and evidence-based medicine in our book collection
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