Objective: To describe the obstacles encountered when attempting to answer doctors' questions with evidence. Design: Qualitative study. Setting: General practices in Iowa. Participants: 9 academic generalist doctors, 14 family doctors, and 2 medical librarians. Main outcome measure: A taxonomy of obstacles encountered while searching for evidence based answers to doctors' questions. Results: 59 obstacles were encountered and organised according to the five steps in asking and answering questions: recognise a gap in knowledge, formulate a question, search for relevant information, formulate an answer, and use the answer to direct patient care. Six obstacles were considered particularly salient by the investigators and practising doctors: the excessive time required to find information; difficulty modifying the original question, which was often vague and open to interpretation; difficulty selecting an optimal strategy to search for information; failure of a seemingly appropriate resource to cover the topic; uncertainty about how to know when all the relevant evidence has been found so that the search can stop; and inadequate synthesis of multiple bits of evidence into a clinically useful statement. Conclusions: Many obstacles are encountered when asking and answering questions about how to care for patients. Addressing these obstacles could lead to better patient care by improving clinically oriented information resources.
%0 Journal Article
%1 Ely:2002
%A Ely, John
%A Osheroff, Jerome A
%A Ebell, Mark H
%A Chambliss, M. Lee
%A Vinson, DC
%A Stevermer, James J.
%A Pifer, Eric A.
%D 2002
%J BMJ
%K clinicalquestionsquestion\_answeringebm
%N 7339
%P 710
%T Obstacles to Answering Doctors' Questions about Patient Care with Evidence: Qualitative Study
%U http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7339/710
%V 324
%X Objective: To describe the obstacles encountered when attempting to answer doctors' questions with evidence. Design: Qualitative study. Setting: General practices in Iowa. Participants: 9 academic generalist doctors, 14 family doctors, and 2 medical librarians. Main outcome measure: A taxonomy of obstacles encountered while searching for evidence based answers to doctors' questions. Results: 59 obstacles were encountered and organised according to the five steps in asking and answering questions: recognise a gap in knowledge, formulate a question, search for relevant information, formulate an answer, and use the answer to direct patient care. Six obstacles were considered particularly salient by the investigators and practising doctors: the excessive time required to find information; difficulty modifying the original question, which was often vague and open to interpretation; difficulty selecting an optimal strategy to search for information; failure of a seemingly appropriate resource to cover the topic; uncertainty about how to know when all the relevant evidence has been found so that the search can stop; and inadequate synthesis of multiple bits of evidence into a clinically useful statement. Conclusions: Many obstacles are encountered when asking and answering questions about how to care for patients. Addressing these obstacles could lead to better patient care by improving clinically oriented information resources.
@article{Ely:2002,
abstract = {Objective: To describe the obstacles encountered when attempting to answer doctors' questions with evidence. Design: Qualitative study. Setting: General practices in Iowa. Participants: 9 academic generalist doctors, 14 family doctors, and 2 medical librarians. Main outcome measure: A taxonomy of obstacles encountered while searching for evidence based answers to doctors' questions. Results: 59 obstacles were encountered and organised according to the five steps in asking and answering questions: recognise a gap in knowledge, formulate a question, search for relevant information, formulate an answer, and use the answer to direct patient care. Six obstacles were considered particularly salient by the investigators and practising doctors: the excessive time required to find information; difficulty modifying the original question, which was often vague and open to interpretation; difficulty selecting an optimal strategy to search for information; failure of a seemingly appropriate resource to cover the topic; uncertainty about how to know when all the relevant evidence has been found so that the search can stop; and inadequate synthesis of multiple bits of evidence into a clinically useful statement. Conclusions: Many obstacles are encountered when asking and answering questions about how to care for patients. Addressing these obstacles could lead to better patient care by improving clinically oriented information resources.},
added-at = {2010-08-02T09:18:56.000+0200},
author = {Ely, John and Osheroff, Jerome A and Ebell, Mark H and Chambliss, M. Lee and Vinson, DC and Stevermer, James J. and Pifer, Eric A.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/20f720ab0fe853106d01b01bc2a1d6059/diego_ma},
interhash = {dcc8c7c68698c9a72745e38d85ecc348},
intrahash = {0f720ab0fe853106d01b01bc2a1d6059},
journal = {BMJ},
keywords = {clinicalquestionsquestion\_answeringebm},
library = {Web (February 2008)},
number = 7339,
pages = 710,
timestamp = {2011-09-26T09:00:16.000+0200},
title = {Obstacles to Answering Doctors' Questions about Patient Care with Evidence: Qualitative Study},
url = {http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7339/710},
volume = 324,
year = 2002
}