Patient management questions asked by primary care doctors fall into 64 generic types

doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7258.0/e

Patient management questions asked by primary care doctors fall into 64 generic types

Doctors often have questions about how to care for their patients. In a previous study Ely and colleagues classified questionsasked by Iowa doctors according to generic type. On page 429 theyreport their modification of this taxonomy to accommodate 295questions asked by doctors in Oregon in order to improve the comprehensivenessof their classification. With the revised taxonomy, 11 coderswere able to classify doctors' questions with moderate reliability.The authors say the taxonomy could be used to organise large numbersof questions, to route questions towards appropriate informationresources, to characterise areas where resources systematicallyfail to address specific question types, and to set prioritiesfor research by identifying question types for which answers donotexist.