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Evidence-Based Practice - Asking the Right Questions

Most instructors will provide some form of instructions or assignment sheet that sets expectations for things like the length, structure, and content of your essay's intro paragraph. A strong research question is the key to efficient and effective literature searching. It provides the mechanism for identifying ace my homework terms to search, and is the foundation of an evidence-based practice research study. One of the first steps in evidence-based practice (EBP) is to ask a well-built clinical question. A good question will allow you to focus your search for the right information. It will also be clearly framed so that it is answerable.

A good clinical question should have four components: the population, the intervention, the comparator, and the outcomes. This is commonly referred to as the PICO framework. Some EBP experts may also add T for time to the formula which can be useful in guiding how you frame your question. The type of question you ask will determine the kind of study that is most suitable for finding an answer. For example, if you are asking about the effectiveness of a treatment, you will want to look for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). If you are questioning prognosis or etiology, a prospective  Training Session for Policy Implementation cohort study is likely more appropriate. You may even find that a meta-analysis is required for your question.

The research question is the foundation of all research and should be well formulated. It determines the direction of inquiry and sets the stage for data collection, analysis, and reporting. A good research question should be clearly worded, focused, and specific. It should also be debatable rather than stating accepted facts. For example, “What are the benefits and drawbacks of working for yourself?” is a good research question. However, “How does spending two hours a day on social media impact neural processing in preteens?” is not.

Finally, it should be manageable and fit within the timeframe and resources available to the researcher. This is often referred to as feasibility and may be assessed by reading the literature and identifying limitations and gaps in existing knowledge. It is also helpful to discuss the research OF NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 1 Collaboration and Leadership Reflection Video with others and seek their feedback. This can be done through a review of the relevant literature, face-to-face meetings, or online forums.

Once the question has been formulated, the next step is to acquire information in order to answer the question. This requires searching for external evidence that supports the PICO question and is applicable to your client population. Often the most useful resources come in the form of guidelines, systematic reviews and meta-analyses. These are sources of synthesized and appraised NURS FPX 4010 Assessment 2 research that have been gathered together and rated to provide the best available evidence. Different types of clinical questions are better addressed with different research designs. For example, assessing the effectiveness of a treatment compared with a placebo is best addressed with a randomized controlled trial.

Searching large bibliographic databases can be time consuming and it is difficult to sift through the many citations that may be relevant but not directly related to your question. In addition, it is important to know how to critically appraise the results of your search. COM Library provides databases that allow you to limit your searches by research design and evidence level. Often a thorough systematic review is necessary to develop evidence-based information. This is time consuming and requires the skills of experts to appraise PICO(T) Questions and an Evidence-Based Approach and present findings in an accessible way. To speed up the process, a number of products have been developed that present a summary of the evidence from systematic reviews. These include abstracts, policy briefs and summary of findings tables.

There have been several studies assessing the effectiveness of these user-friendly summaries. One study by Dobbins et al assessed instrumental use; changes in the amount of evidence considered in a decision and reported that there was no significant difference between the groups who had access to an evidence summary and those who did not. Two other studies compared a standard format summary of findings table to a new format that presented some of the same data differently. Carrasco-Labra et al found that participants in the latter group preferred the new table format compared to the standard one.