Guidance for question 20
What the question is about and why it is important
Question 20 is an ‘intuitive summary’ of your responses to the
preceding 19 questions. All publications will have deficiencies, and it is unlikely
that any one publication will rate high on all of the questions. However, after
completing all of the questions on DISCERN Genetics, you should have developed
some feeling for the overall quality of the publication which will help you
decide whether it is a useful and appropriate source of information about your
choices about genetic screening and testing.
Rating the question
The guidelines below should help you to rate this question, but your judgement
is also very important. It may encourage you to know that during the development
and testing of the DISCERN Genetics tool, users independently reached very similar
conclusions about the overall quality of the publications they were rating even
though we did not provide very specific instructions for this question. DISCERN
Genetics has been designed to help you develop your critical skills, so trust
your own opinion!
Guidelines for rating the question:
- High (5) - The publication rated high (4 or above) on the majority of
questions. A high overall quality rating indicates the publication is “good”
quality - it is a useful and appropriate source of information about choices
for genetic testing.
- Moderate (3) - The publication rated high and low on a similar number
of questions, or the majority of questions rated in the mid ranges (3). A moderate
overall quality of information about genetic testing but has some limitations.
Additional information or support would be needed.
- Low (1)- The publication rated low (2 or below) on the majority of
questions. A low overall quality rating indicates the publication is “poor”
quality - it has serious shortcomings and is not a useful or appropriate source
of information about genetic testing.