Introduction to

Systematic and Scoping Reviews:

The Research
Question
Creating a research question
• What is a research question?
• An answereable inquiry into a specific concern or issue.
• First step in a research proyect.
• RQ identifies the problem to be studied and guides the methodology.
 Creating a research question
The type of question determines the study design:
- The most common questions are of prognosis, diagnosis and
therapy.
- Other questions are: etiology, prevention, meaning, prevalence, and more.
Type of Clinical/Research Question Example Study Design

Prognosis

Diagnosis

Therapy

Burns PB, Chung KC. Developing good clinical questions and finding the best evidence to answer those questions. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2010;126(2):613-618.
doi:10.1097/PRS.0b013e3181de24a7
 Creating a research question

The type of question determine the study design:

Type of Clinical/ Research Example Study Design
Question
Prognosis For patients 65 years and older, how does the Cohort Study and/or Case-Control Series
use of an influenza vaccine compared to not
receive the vaccine influence the risk of
developing pneumonia during flu season?
Diagnosis For female patients over 65 years of age, is RCT or Cohort Study
ultrasound more accurate in diagnosing
breast tumors compared with CT scans?
Therapy In dementia patients, what is the effect of Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)
physical activity on fall risk compared with
education meetings?

Burns PB, Chung KC. Developing good clinical questions and finding the best evidence to answer those questions. Plast Reconstr Surg. 2010;126(2):613-618.
doi:10.1097/PRS.0b013e3181de24a7
Fineout-Overholt, E. & Johnston, L. (2005), Teaching EBP: asking searchable, answerable clinical questions. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 2, 157–160.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6787.2005.00032.x
PICOT
P – Specific patient population of interest

I / E – Intervention of interest or issue of interest -

Exposure

C – Comparison of interest

O – Outcome of interest

T– Time frame / type of study

Search assigment (10 minutes)
Using your own approach/method:
• Define a question of your choice and document it.
• Create a search strategy and search in browser.
• Document the search results.
• If you decide to refine your search, document the
new one too and describe the changes and why.