Research Guides: Evidence-Based Medicine: Question Types and Corresponding Resources

Foreground and Background Questions

Clinical questions are categorized as background or foreground. Once you determine your question type, consult the box called "What Resources Should I Use?" (below) to find the appropriate resources for answering your question.

Background Questions

Ask to obtain general knowledge about an illness, condition, or disease.
Ask who, what, when, where, how, or why

Foreground Questions

AKA Clinical Questions
Ask for specific knowledge to inform clinical decisions.
Deal with specific patient or population; more complex than background questions.

Framing Research Questions
NYU Libraries, Foreground vs Background Research Questions
Provides examples

What Resources Should I Use?

For background questions:

Medical textbooks
Review articles (e.g. Annals "In the Clinic", American Family Physician, Nature Disease Primers, etc.)
Point of care tools and applications (e.g. DynaMed)

For foreground questions:

Clinical Question Types and Study Design

Foreground questions can be further classified into four groups: therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, and etiology/harm. Certain study designs are better for answering particular question types. The Appropriate Study Designs column lists the study designs best suited to each question type, in order of utility.

Question Type	Definition	Appropriate Study Designs	Possible Question Frameworks
Therapy	Questions about the effectiveness of treatment in order to achieve an outcome (drugs, surgical intervention, exercise, counseling, etc.)	Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)	PICO PEO
Diagnosis	Questions about identification of a disorder in a patient presenting with specific symptoms	RCT > Cohort Study	PICO PIT / PICTO
Prognosis	Questions about the progression of a disease or outcome of a patient with a particular condition	Cohort Study > Case Control Studies > Case Series	PICO SPICE SPIDER
Etiology/Harm	Questions about the negative impact from an intervention or other procedure	Cohort Study > Case Control Studies > Case Series	PICO / PICo PIPOH ECLIPSe