Checklist for the research question

This checklist has been contributed by Dave Sackett ( www.davesackett.com ), who prepared it for the forthcoming 3rd edition of Clinical Epidemiology; A Basic Science for Answering Questions about Health Care, to be published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins in 2005.

• Involve every potential collaborator (plus some critics and consumers) in hammering out the trial question.  Don’t rush it.
• Decide where to site the question along the explanatory – management continuum.
• Make sure that the question includes the relevant Persons, the Intervention, the Comparison intervention, and the key Outcomes, and the Target of the trial = “PICOT”
• Consider the impact of your question in each subsequent step in the trial design and execution.

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This document was last updated on 19th October 2004.