Quality Assessment — Research Paper Appraisal

What it does

This skill automates critical appraisal of research articles by mapping study designs to appropriate quality-check tools, extracting text from PDFs when needed, and synthesizing a structured assessment report. It supports multiple study types (RCTs, cohort, case-control, diagnostic accuracy, qualitative, systematic reviews) and encodes deterministic output rules to keep deliverables consistent. The packaged helper scripts assist with PDF extraction and standardized output generation.

When to use it

Use when you need a repeatable, checklist-driven quality appraisal: preparing evidence tables for reviews, validating study internal validity, or producing reviewer-ready assessment summaries. Require the source article (text or PDF) and clear task parameters (which tool/checklist to apply). Do not use for speculative clinical advice or when source documents are missing.

What's included

• Scripts: scripts/extract_pdf.py (PDF text extraction helper).
• References: included references and checklists in the repository references/.
• Instructions: workflow guidance to identify study design, pick the right assessment tool, run extraction, and produce quality_assessment_result.md with a validation summary and assumptions. The SKILL.md specifies input validation and failure handling rules.

Compatible agents

Compatible with Python-capable agents and research assistants that can validate inputs, run helper scripts, and post-process structured markdown output.