How to come up with Research Questions
and Quality improvement projects?
Jitender Sareen MD
Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Community Health Sciences
University of Manitoba
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Research Manitoba
Co-investigators, mentors, students, patients
Family
Moving research forward
How to come up with research and QI
ideas?
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Listen
Observe
Be Curious
Ask questions
Problem Solve
Make Connections
Quiz- from Dr. Olafson’s talk
• What is the difference between a Research
project and a Quality improvement project?
Research vs. QI
• Research Project:
– Creation of new knowledge.
• Quality improvement project
– Translate established knowledge into improving
care locally.
What types of research and quality
improvement questions
can you ask around a case?
• 26 year old veteran of Afghanistan, multiple
concussions, leaving military, multiple
relationships, presenting to clinic with back
pain, posttraumatic stress disorder, wanting
medical marijuana for treatment.
Read around the case!
• What should you read?
– Practice guidelines
– Systematic reviews and meta analyses
– Read once a week the abstract from the highest
impact journals in your field.
– You will be surprised how relevant the articles are
to your clinical cases.
– Go to conferences and actually attend the talks
not just go to the beach!
– TED talks!
When reading
• Ask yourself:
– What is known about this topic?
– What is not known?
• Next compare what is recommended as
treatments to what is being practiced….
How do you get an idea?
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Listen
Observe
Be curious
Ask questions
Problem solve
Make Connections
Keys to success: TED talk
Richard St. John – 8 Secrets of Success
1. Ideas
2. Passion
3. Hard work
4. Good – practice, practice, practice
5. Focus on the task
6. Push through self-doubt and shyness
7. Serve- serve others something of value…
8. *** Persist***
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Persist through CRAP
Criticism
Rejection
Assholes
Pressure
Categories of Questions I
• Epidemiology
– Seems boring but kind of important
– How common is it?
– What is the natural history of the condition with
and without treatment?
– What is the impact on the person, family and
system?
– How many people get treatment/need treatment?
Categories of Questions II
• Differential diagnosis/Diagnostic
classification/comorbidity
• What are the common comorbid conditions?
• How should we classify the disease?
– EG. PTSD is NOT an anxiety disorder anymore
– EG. Depression with psychosis
Categories of Questions III
• What is the cause of the illness?
– Although in papers, we are careful about not making
causal statement, everyone wants to know why did
this person present with these symptoms, at this
particular time?
• The short answer is we often don’t know.
• Important to use Biopsychosociocultural
approach to understanding disease
Categories of Questions IV
• Prevention studies
– Eg. Suicide prevention, ptsd prevention…
• Treatment studies
– Biological treatments
– Psychosocial treatments
Categories of Questions
• Range of medical education questions…
• W. Fleisher…
How to come up with
research and QI ideas?
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•
•
•
•
•
Listen
Observe
Be Curious
Ask questions
Problem Solve
Make Connections