Asking questions

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.- Francis Bacon (1561 -1626)

In practice it is a rare day when you are not faced with a need to know some new information about the prognosis, treatment or management of a condition. Turning these clinical problems into a well-built ( answerable) clinical question is a key skill of evidence-based practice.

There are essentially two types of question:

1. Background questions: These ask for general knowledge about a disorder and have two main components.

  • A question root (who, what, how, when or why)
  • A disorder or specific aspect of a disorder (e.g. What causes dental caries? or What are the complications of root canal treatment?)


2. Foreground questions: These ask for specific knowledge about how to manage patients with a disorder and a good or well-constructed foreground question usually has four main elements:

P - The type of patient or the problem of interest
I - The main intervention or exposure E; this is commonly a treatment but it could be a diagnostic test, some prognostic factor etc.
C - The comparison intervention/s when relevant
O - The clinical outcome of interest.

Commonly referred to as PICO or PECO format.

e.g.  In patients with tooth discolouration would home bleaching compared to placebo lead to whiter teeth?

Page last edited: 09 December 2007