One way to categorize the questions that come up in clinical practice is to ask whether they require background or clinical (patient-centered) information to answer them.
Background questions ask for general knowledge (who, what, how, why, when) about a health condition, syndrome, issue, or disease.
Example: Does / how does exercise strengthen the heart?
Example: When do complications of whooping cough usually occur and in what age groups?
Example: How well do creatine or iron supplements work as a substitute for food sources of these nutrients?
In ICS 1-3, you'll be exploring the resources needed to get to background information
Clinical (patient-centered) questions ask for specific information to facilitate clinical decision-making, forming a clinical question requires more knowledge in relation to individual patients or case scenarios. They differ from background questions because the patient's preferences and values about treatment or other medical issues influence the question content and also the decisions about what information applies.
Clinical questions tend to be more complex than background questions,and usually require higher-level search skills. How to ask (structure) clinical questions and efficiently search for answers to them will be the focus next year (in ICS 4-6).
Clinical questions are structured using PICO - get in the habit of being able to identify the P-I-C-O in case studies, it needs to be second-nature by the time you reach clinic.
P - Patient or Population
I - Intervention
C - Control or Comparison
O - Outcome
In reality, what begins as a background question may spill over into a clinical question and vice versa. As your basic medical knowledge grows, you'll be asking fewer background questions and more patient-centered ones.
Bastyr Library content may be used, remixed, tweaked, and built upon non-commercially, as long as BU is credited, and new creations are licensed under the identical terms.