Learning objectives

• - Formulate questions in a clinical context
• - Prepare searchable clinical questions in a PICO format based on a patient scenario
• - Describe which study designs are best for answering different types of clinical questions.

A 35-years old male patient with pain in an endodontically treated tooth presents in your dental office. The radiograph reveals a periradicular radiolucent lesion. You discuss the situation with the patient. The patient may want to know how did the tooth get infected (etiology question), or whether certain treatment is more effective than other (therapy question), or how accurate is the radiographic examination in diagnosing periapical pathology (diagnostic test question), or what are the chances to keep the tooth if left untreated (prognosis question).