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. In both 2009 and 2010, we offered a workshop for consumers focusing on how ask an answerable question and they were well-attended. Our lecture covered Module 2 in the online course Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare (EBHC), including PICO and examples. In the evaluations, we received encouragement to offer the workshop again, but this time with more opportunities for practicing what we reviewed in a lecture format. In preparation for the 2011 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, Understanding Evidence-based Healthcare: A Foundation for Action. 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.