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1. Classifying Clinical Questions

The great majority of questions asked by clinicians fall into very few categories. Leaving aside questions which would be best answered using a book or drug formulary (e.g. what is the dose of drug X?, what diseases are associated with symptom X?) we find that the commonest questions asked are: -

blue.gif (265 bytes) How do I diagnose condition X? (DIAGNOSIS)
blue.gif (265 bytes) What is the treatment of condition X? (THERAPY)
blue.gif (265 bytes) What is the cause of condition X? (AETIOLOGY)
blue.gif (265 bytes) What is the outcome of condition X? (PROGNOSIS)

To this basic set of four can be added: -

blue.gif (265 bytes) How do I find guidelines on condition X (GUIDELINES)
blue.gif (265 bytes) How do I find a systematic review on condition X (REVIEWS)

Each of the above questions is actually composed of two halves. To answer the question "How do I diagnose condition X?" you need to have a systematic search which finds all of the diagnostic methods for all conditions (which we shall call DIAGNOSIS), and a subject search which finds all of the articles about any aspect of condition X (which we shall call CONDITION X). If we combine the two searches using the Boolean AND operator, as in DIAGNOSIS AND CONDITION X, we should have found all of the articles relating to the diagnosis of condition X.