SCHI Library: Journal Clubs

Struggling to keep current and use evidence-based practice? You’re not alone! Journal Clubs can be an informal and practical way to learn how to appraise articles and gather evidence to inform practice. Here are some tips to run one successfully:

Meet regularly

Make your Journal Club a regular, anticipated event on everyone’s calendar.

Include food

Let’s face it, who doesn’t prefer a meeting with food? Even lollies or chips will do. Journal Club meetings should be social and enjoyable.

Is Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credit available?

CPE points can be the incentive everyone needs. Points can be given for attendance, but even better if they are for presenting, active participation or contributing to online discussion via social media, forums etc. (e.g. 1 CPE point for 2 contributions plus 2 comments on contributions by others).

Enlist a co-ordinator

Someone with Journal Club experience who can schedule the meetings, organise a roster of presenters and support newbie facilitators is a must.

A format helps but be creative

Avoid lecturing in “chalk and talk” or “death by PowerPoint” style. Try these ideas:

• Interactive presentation with no pre-reading requirement
• Structured Review Instrument (head to the article’s appendix for the format)
• Team competition can be very engaging

Keep it short

Allow 10 mins to present the article then 20 mins for discussion about methodology and clinical issues. Here’s how to do this.

Keep it light

Remember – the idea is to weigh the strengths against the weaknesses of the article. Don’t pull it apart or criticise the author/s.

Encourage everyone to participate

The club is for everyone, not just the outspoken ones! Invite opinions and ask individuals to share their thoughts, including those participating online. Consider a Google doc or online forum for follow-up comments and suggestions.

Create a 1-page handout

These notes will guide your presentation and can be shared as a storable record of the topic, often called a CAT (Critically Appraised Topic). Dartmouth University recommends this CAT template but for a deeper dive into CAT writing take a look at this article by Sadigh et.al. Oxford CEBM (Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine) created CATmaker software to generate CATs. Download and try it!

The “TREAT” journal club format stands for “Tailoring Research Evidence And Theory” – and was developed by a group of health professionals and researchers in 2015 at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Queensland, Australia. Some unique features of TREAT journal clubs compared to standard journal clubs include:

• Journal club topics chosen as a group
• Article is appraised as a group during the session as opposed to only an individual presenting
• Defined roles which rotate between members.
• Each component of the format is based on research evidence

• Create a list of high impact, peer reviewed journals in your specialisation, making it easy for presenters to select relevant articles
• Help find articles when it’s your turn to present
• Provide additional resources about a topic under discussion
• Show you BrowZine – the simple way to create your personalised journal library

Critical Appraisal checklists

Printable research evaluation checklists for many study types:

Quality Improvement Minimum Quality Criteria Set (QI-MQCS) 10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003151

Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) checklists

Oxford’s CEBM tools

Dartmouth Uni’s checklists

Joanna Briggs Institute checklists

International Centre for Allied Health Evidence (iCAHE) checklist

Finding articles – these journals have great content for use by clubs

Journal of Evidence Based Medicine

Evidence Based Medicine (BMJ)

Evidence Based Nursing (BMJ)

ACP Journal Club – a monthly feature in “Annals of Internal Medicine”