1. How to come up with Research Questions and Quality improvement projects?
Jitender Sareen MD
Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Community Health Sciences
University of Manitoba

2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Research Manitoba
Co-investigators, mentors, students, patients
Family
Moving research forward

3. How to come up with research and QI ideas?
Listen
Observe
Be Curious
Ask questions
Problem Solve
Make Connections

4. Research vs. QI Research Project: Quality improvement project
Creation of new knowledge.
Quality improvement project
Translate established knowledge into improving care locally.

5. 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.

6. 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!

7. 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….

8. How do you get an idea? Listen Observe Be curious Ask questions
Problem solve
Make Connections

9. 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…

10. 8. *** Persist*** Persist through CRAP Criticism Rejection Assholes
Pressure

11. 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?

12. 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

13. 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

14. Categories of Questions IV
Prevention studies
Eg. Suicide prevention, ptsd prevention…
Treatment studies
Biological treatments
Psychosocial treatments

15. Categories of Questions
Range of medical education questions…
W. Fleisher…