Making structured clinical questions for research purposes: a practical approach

• Autor(a) principal: Leles, Cláudio Rodrigues
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Outros Autores: de Oliveira, Lorena Batista, Morandini, William José, da Silva, Erica Tatiane
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista da ABENO (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revabeno.emnuvens.com.br/revabeno/article/view/1411
• topic: Education; dental. Teaching. Dental research.; Educação em Odontologia. Ensino. Pesquisa em odontologia.

The first stage of a clinical research protocol is the formulation of a clear and specific research question. The research that emanates from clinical practice is related to a topic of interest about which a doubt or lack of knowledge is identified and translated into a non-structured clinical question. This initial question must be properly structured in order to be answerable after systematic literature review, critical appraisal, interpretation of the available evidence, and evaluation of the possible clinical outcomes when the evidence is transferred into practice. The aim of this study was to develop a practical exercise of formulation of clinical questions in prosthodontics. Data was collected in specific forms from 31 clinical scenarios during 40 appointments with patients at the School of Dentistry, Federal University of Goiás (UFG). Clinical scenarios were presented and discussed by groups that included 3 to 4 dental students and a tutor, where clinical questions were formulated during a total of 16 meetings and aproximately 26 hours. A total of 53 structured clinical questions were formulated and the specific components of the questions were identified (patient, intervention, comparison, outcome). It was concluded that exercising the formulation of clinical questions is an important step in clinical learning, for the improvement of critical skills and for identification of topics and questions for research purposes.