Treatment of Shoulder Pain

Description

Instructions

Choose one article from the three that I attached to answer the questions below. 

Please critically review your chosen article and answer all questions with 1-3 full 

sentences as appropriate. Do not answer with just yes/no answers. 

1.  How were subjects recruited and distributed to groups (i.e. randomization, stratified 

block design)?  

2.  What descriptive variables did the authors use to describe the subjects?  Were there 

any others that you would find valuable to better describe the study group? 

3.  Describe the inclusion/exclusion criteria if defined.

4. Identify the independent and dependent variables within the study.  

5.  Were the subjects or investigators blinded? If so was it a single blind or double blinded study and how was blinding incorporated?

6.  Was there sufficient N (number of subjects in the study)? Did the authors report how 

this was determined (discussion of statistical power)? 

7.  Was the sensitivity/specificity or validity of the test instruments/procedures described? Or was a previous study cited as support for the sensitivity/specificity or validity for any outcome variables?

8.  Were inter- and intra-tester and/or instrument reliability reported?  If not, would it have been appropriate?

9.  Please describe at least 1 statistical test employed in the study, the purpose of the 

test and whether it was appropriate.

10.  In brief, describe the results of the study?  

11.  Is the quality of tables/graphs such that they are easily interpreted?

12.   Does the related literature utilized in the discussion support or refute the findings of this study?  (teacher’s explanation of the question – what literature did the authors use in their discussion section that either supported or contradicted their results? In other words 

does their study agree or counter other similar studies?)

13. What do the authors describe as the theory/mechanism of action that produced the results as described in the discussion?

14. Were there any bias either presented by the authors or should have been identified? (teacher’s explanation of the question – was there any potential areas of bias that either the authors acknowledged in the study or should have been identified?)

15.  What were the greatest limitations you recognized?  (identify two—cannot state “low 

sample size” or “sample homogeneity” as this is common across nearly any study)

16. Based on your review, do you feel the study displays high internal validity?  Provide 

rationale for your answer. (did the study measure what it was intended to measure? This is 

regardless of the outcome)