Welcome to the Annals of Family Medicine Journal Club

The Annals of Family Medicine Journal Club is designed to develop a learning community of those seeking to improve health care and health through enhanced primary care. It is a forum where people who care can meet, share, learn and create change.

Current Selection

Jan/Feb 2025: Vocal Recognition of Depression?

Previous Selections

How It Works

In each issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, the editors select an article or articles and provide discussion questions. We encourage you to take a RADICAL approach to these materials, and to post a summary of your conversation in our eLetters section of the website. For details, see A, B, and C, below.

A) Discussion Questions

Annals of Family Medicine Journal Club discussion questions can be used to stimulate reflection and conversation. In particular, these questions are designed to help journal club participants a) identify key points addressed by the article and put them in context, b) discuss the scientific validity of the findings, and c) consider how the findings apply to practice, policy, education, or research. The current selection(s) (above) and previous selections (below) include article citation, discussion tips, and discussion questions.

Discussion Questions

  • What question is asked by this study and why does it matter?

  • How does this study advance beyond previous research and clinical practice on this topic?

  • How strong is the study design for answering the question?

  • What is the gold standard for a major depressive disorder diagnosis? How is this different than the diagnosis used in this study?

  • What are sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value? How are these calculated?

    • ∘ What are false negative and false positives? How are these related to sensitivity and specificity?

    • ∘ What is spectrum bias? How could this be applicable to this study?

  • To what degree can the findings be accounted for by:

    1. How and where people were recruited from for the study?

    2. Who opted to participate in the study?

    3. How data were collected for the study?

    4. How data were determined to be included in the study data set?

    5. Decision on where to make cut points in the data?

    6. How “further evaluation recommended” was dealt with in the calculation of sensitivity and specificity?

  • What are the main study findings?

  • What is the difference in validation on a portion of the initial sampled population vs a completely different population? Why is this distinction important?

  • How comparable is the study sample to patients in your practice? What is your judgment about the transportability of the findings?

  • What contextual factors are important for interpreting the findings?

  • How might this study change your practice? Policy? Research?

  • Who are the constituencies for the findings, and how might they be engaged in interpreting or using the findings?

  • What are the next steps in interpreting or applying the findings?

  • What researchable questions remain?

B) A RADICAL Approach

We encourage you to take a RADICAL approach to these articles. RADICAL stands for Read, Ask, Discuss, Inquire, Collaborate, Act and Learn. Journal clubs can get RADICAL by adopting these steps:

Read the article critically.
Ask the key questions for yourself.
Discuss the meaning and shared interpretation.
Inquire into other sources of knowledge and insight.
Collaborate with others who know or care about the issues.
Act by sharing an online (TRACK) comment and working to change practice, policy, training, or research.
Learn from what others share online and from your actions and collaborations and restart the cycle.

C) Online Discussion (eLetters)

The Annals of Family Medicine eLetters online discussion forum (formerly called TRACK) is a way for you to share insights and conversation themes with other journal clubs and with readers worldwide. After discussing an Annals of Family Medicine article in your journal club, we ask you to consider summarizing your conversation in an eLetter. (Sample eLetter) This is a unique opportunity for your journal club to be part of a global learning community.

To submit a comment in the online discussion, open the article online and click on the eLetters tab. You may submit a brief, informal comment or a more structured, prepared letter. Comments may be as short as one sentence and usually do not exceed 400 words and up to 5 references. Prepared eLetters would be appropriate to cite in your CV.

  • Introduction to the Annals Journal Club (Stange KS, Miller WL, McClellan LA, Annals journal club: it's time to get RADICAL. Ann Fam Med. 2006;4(3):196-197).
  • Bibliography (Extensive references about journal clubs and how to read and evaluate medical literature)

Previous Selections