Types of Clinical Questions

Most common types of questions are related to clinical tasks:

DIAGNOSIS

• Differential Diagnosis – when considering the possible causes of a patient’s clinical problem, how to rank them by likelihood, seriousness and treatability


• Diagnostic Testing – how to select and interpret diagnostic tests, in order to confirm or exclude a diagnosis, based on considering their precision, accuracy, acceptability, expense, safety, etc

THERAPY – how to select treatments to offer patients that do more good than harm and that are worth the efforts and costs of using them

PROGNOSIS – how to estimate the patient’s likely clinical course over time and anticipate likely complications of disease

HARM/ETIOLOGY – how to identify causes for disease (including iatrogenic forms)

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Other types of questions related to clinical tasks:

• Clinical examination – how to properly gather and interpret findings from the history and physical examination


• Prevention – how to reduce the chance of disease by identifying and modifying risk factors and how to diagnose early by screening


• Cost-Analysis – how to compare the cost and consequences of different treatments and tests

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