Formulating your question

MEDLINE includes more than 7 million citations, but not all of them will be relevant to your query.
Think about your search and formulate a specific question that will provide you with relevant information.

Break your topic into important elements:

• the patient population or problem
• the intervention (therapy, test) being considered
• the comparison (if any), and
• the desired outcome.

The clinical case:  The patient is an adult female with a history of diabetes. Recently she has experienced increased nausea and vomiting. She recently read an article on the Internet about cisapride which has been shown to be effective in reducing these problems. She wants to know if this will help her.

The question might be::   In patients with diabetes, what is the effect of cisapride (Propulsid) on nausea and vomiting?

The relevant parts of the question are:

• diabetes
• cisapride or Propulsid
• (no comparison)
• reduction or elimination of nausea and vomiting

Web address:     http://southmed.usouthal.edu/library/ref/ovid/question.htm
Last Update:    2/14/02
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