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CASP (the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme) publishes eleven free checklists, and the one you need is determined entirely by the study design in front of you, not by your review topic. Pick the checklist that matches the paper’s methodology — randomised controlled trial, cohort study, qualitative study, and so on — then work through it in the same three-part order every CASP checklist shares: is the study valid, what are the results, and will they help locally. Below is a decision table for picking the right one, a walkthrough of how the three-part structure works, and where CASP fits next to JBI, Newcastle-Ottawa, and GRADE.
Which CASP checklist to use, by study design
CASP UK maintains checklists for eleven study types, downloadable free from casp-uk.net. Match the checklist to the design of the paper you are appraising, not to your own review’s design — a qualitative study cited inside a mixed-methods systematic review still gets the qualitative checklist, not the systematic review checklist.
| If the paper you’re appraising is a… | Use this CASP checklist |
|---|---|
| Randomised controlled trial (RCT) | RCT Checklist |
| Systematic review (the paper itself is a review) | Systematic Review Checklist |
| Systematic review with meta-analysis of RCTs | Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis of RCTs Checklist |
| Systematic review with meta-analysis of observational studies | Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies Checklist |
| Qualitative study (interviews, focus groups, ethnography) | Qualitative Studies Checklist |
| Cohort study (prospective or retrospective) | Cohort Study Checklist |
| Case-control study | Case Control Study Checklist |
| Cross-sectional study | Cross-Sectional Studies Checklist |
| Diagnostic accuracy study | Diagnostic Study Checklist |
| Economic evaluation (cost-effectiveness, cost-utility) | Economic Evaluation Checklist |
| Clinical prediction rule / risk-prediction model | Clinical Prediction Rule Checklist |
If a paper doesn’t cleanly fit one design (a mixed-methods study, for instance), appraise each component separately with its matching checklist rather than forcing the whole paper through one tool. CASP also keeps a checklist archive of retired/older versions — always confirm you’re using the current version before citing it in a protocol or manuscript, since CASP has revised individual checklists over time.
What CASP is, in one paragraph
The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme is a UK-based training and resources provider, part of Oxford’s evidence-based practice tradition, that publishes standardised question sets for evaluating whether a published study is trustworthy, what it actually found, and whether those findings are relevant to a given decision. CASP checklists are one of several critical-appraisal tools used in systematic review and evidence-based practice workflows, alongside the Cochrane risk-of-bias tools, JBI critical appraisal tools, and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale — see the comparison section below for when each is the better fit.
The three-part structure every CASP checklist shares
Regardless of study design, every current CASP checklist is organised around the same three questions, asked as a series of sub-items:
- Are the results of the study valid? Screening questions on methodology — how participants/studies were selected, whether the design controls for the biases relevant to that study type (randomisation and allocation concealment for an RCT; reflexivity and recruitment strategy for a qualitative study; comparability of exposed/unexposed groups for a cohort study).
- What are the results? Questions on the precision and completeness of what was actually measured and reported — effect sizes and confidence intervals for a quantitative design, or the adequacy and depth of the qualitative analysis for a qualitative one.
- Will the results help locally? Applicability questions — whether the study population, setting, and outcomes transfer to the context you’re applying the findings in, and whether the benefits are worth the harms/costs.
Work through all three sections for every paper; don’t stop after the validity section even if a study looks weak there; a study with a serious validity limitation can still be worth including in a review if you note the limitation explicitly. CASP checklists are appraisal aids for structuring judgment, not scoring instruments — they deliberately do not produce a numeric score or a pass/fail cutoff, which is one of the main things that distinguishes them from tools like the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (see below).
Illustrative example: applying the RCT checklist
The following is an illustrative composite, not a real trial or a real appraisal — it shows the mechanics of working through the checklist, not a verified result. Appraising a hypothetical RCT of a new medication, a reviewer works the validity section first: was the assignment to treatment/control genuinely randomised (yes, computer-generated sequence), was allocation concealed from those enrolling participants (yes, sealed opaque envelopes), were participants/clinicians/outcome assessors blinded (partially — outcome assessors blinded, but patients could tell which arm they were in because of the medication’s side-effect profile), and were groups similar at baseline (yes, per the reported baseline table). None of these answers is disqualifying on its own, but “partial blinding” is a limitation the reviewer carries forward and states explicitly when writing up the appraisal, rather than silently averaging it away.
CASP qualitative checklist: what’s different
The Qualitative Studies Checklist asks about a different set of validity threats than the quantitative checklists — whether the research design is appropriate to the research question, whether the recruitment strategy and data collection methods are justified, whether the relationship between researcher and participants has been adequately considered (reflexivity), and whether the analysis is sufficiently rigorous, with findings clearly derived from the data. It is the checklist to use for interview studies, focus-group studies, ethnography, and similar designs — not the Systematic Review Checklist, even when the qualitative study is one you’re including inside a broader systematic review.
CASP systematic review checklist: appraising the review itself
Use the Systematic Review Checklist when the paper you are appraising is itself a systematic review (or you are teaching/assessing critical appraisal of one) — it asks whether the review addressed a clearly focused question, searched for the right kind of studies, assessed the quality of included studies, and combined results appropriately. This is distinct from PRISMA 2020, which is a reporting checklist for authors writing up a review, not an appraisal tool for readers judging one; a review can be PRISMA-compliant in what it reports and still score poorly on a CASP appraisal of what it actually did methodologically. If you are instead evaluating a review that includes a meta-analysis, CASP’s separate meta-analysis checklists (for RCTs and for observational studies) add questions specific to pooling — heterogeneity, the appropriateness of the pooling model, and publication-bias assessment.
CASP vs. other critical appraisal tools
| Tool | Format | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| CASP checklists | Qualitative judgment prompts, no numeric score | Individual study appraisal in a review, teaching critical appraisal, journal clubs |
| JBI Critical Appraisal Tools | Yes/No/Unclear/NA items per question | Reviews following JBI systematic review methodology, broader range of designs (case reports, prevalence studies, text/opinion papers) |
| Newcastle-Ottawa Scale | Star-based numeric scoring (up to 9 stars) | Cohort and case-control studies where reviewers want a quantifiable quality score, e.g. for use as a covariate in meta-regression |
| Cochrane RoB 2 / ROBINS-I | Structured domain-by-domain risk-of-bias judgment | Cochrane systematic reviews of RCTs (RoB 2) or non-randomised studies of interventions (ROBINS-I); required by Cochrane Handbook methodology |
| GRADE | Certainty rating (high/moderate/low/very low) applied per outcome, across the whole body of evidence | Rating the overall certainty of evidence for a specific outcome after individual-study appraisal is done — used alongside, not instead of, a study-level tool |
These tools are not interchangeable substitutes for each other; a Cochrane review will specify RoB 2 or ROBINS-I because the Cochrane Handbook requires it, while a non-Cochrane review has more latitude to choose CASP or JBI. Check your review’s registered protocol or your target journal’s methodology requirements before deciding, since some editors and funders expect a specific tool.
Referencing and reusing CASP checklists
CASP makes its checklists available as free downloads for appraisal work, and CASP UK asks users to cite the checklist and its date/version when reporting appraisal results in a manuscript or protocol (for example, in a PRISMA-style methods section: “study quality was assessed using the CASP [checklist name], [year]”). If you plan to reproduce, adapt, or redistribute a CASP checklist itself — rather than simply using it to appraise studies and citing it — check casp-uk.net directly for current terms, since redistribution terms are a separate question from use.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a CASP checklist score or cutoff for excluding a study?
No. CASP checklists are deliberately unscored — they structure a reviewer’s judgment rather than producing a number, unlike the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. If your review protocol requires a numeric quality threshold for inclusion/exclusion, a scored tool (Newcastle-Ottawa for cohort/case-control, or a GRADE-based approach) fits that requirement better than CASP.
Do two reviewers need to apply the CASP checklist independently?
Standard systematic review practice — reflected in the Cochrane Handbook and PRISMA reporting guidance — is to have two reviewers appraise each study independently and resolve disagreements by discussion or a third reviewer, regardless of which appraisal tool is used. CASP itself doesn’t mandate a specific number of appraisers; the requirement typically comes from your review’s own protocol or your target journal.
Can I use a CASP checklist outside a systematic review, e.g. for a journal club?
Yes — CASP checklists are widely used for teaching critical appraisal and for journal clubs, independent of any formal systematic review. The three-part validity/results/applicability structure works the same way whether you’re appraising one paper for a discussion group or forty papers for a review.
Is the CASP Systematic Review Checklist the same as PRISMA?
No. PRISMA 2020 is a reporting checklist for authors of a systematic review, specifying what the finished review must disclose. The CASP Systematic Review Checklist is an appraisal tool for readers, judging whether a published review’s methodology was sound. See CASRAI’s PRISMA guide for the reporting side.
Last verified 16 August 2026 against CASP UK’s own checklist listing at casp-uk.net/casp-tools-checklists.
