How to ask an answerable question for health care and health research: For consumers

Article type
Authors
Dickersin K1, Zhang M2, Fitton N1, McIlwain C3
1US Cochrane Center, USA
2Chinese Cochrane Centre, China
3Consumer Coordinator, The Cochrane Collaboration, United Kingdom
Abstract
Objectives:

To gain hands-on experience developing answerable research questions.

Description:

In many countries, those performing systematic reviews ask consumers to contribute to priority setting or to review and comment on topics as they are refined. Because consumers and clinical researchers often do not ‘speak the same language’, consumer questions may be ignored or given a lower priority rank. Thisworkshop is based on materials from the online course Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action (see http://us.cochrane.org/understanding-evidence-based-healthcarefoundation- action, Module 2), including framing the components of a question, with opportunities to practise with examples. In preparation for the workshop, we will ask participants to submit research questions they would like to see answered, and we will encourage them to complete the online course. In the workshop, we will: 1. Break into workgroups to develop answerable questions from those submitted; 2. Report back to the larger group the questions each group developed; and 3. Comment on the developed questions to refine the topics as would occur in a ‘topic refinement’ or peer review setting.