What is a well-focused question?
Well-focused questions have several characteristics:
Well-focused questions are precise.
Well-focused questions ask for useful information.
Well-focused questions can be answered with meaningful information.
Well-focused questions encourage inquiry and research.
And of course, well-focused questions have to be questions.
Imagine the situation where you have a 52 year old woman with intermittent shortness ofbreath and rare chest pain with exertion. You are concerned that her symptoms are fromcoronary heart disease. An example of a well-focused question: "Is stressechocardiogram the most cost-effective method to diagnose coronary artery disease inpatients with a moderate risk of having a significant stenosis?"
Many questions that doctors ask are not well-focused.
One example is when someone states an opinion and then asks for confirmation of theopinion: I think stress echocardiogram is the best method to diagnose coronary arterydisease. What do you think? This is not a request for information but a request forhelp or support. Thus, this is not a well-focused question.
Another example is a question that is not answerable with data: Why does this personnot take his antihypertensive medication? At best, this question can be answered by asuggestion about how someone could go about answering this question.
A last example of a poorly-focused question is one that is not precise: Whatmedication is best to treat coronary artery disease? There are many ways to answerthis because the criterion for selection of the treatment outcome (cheapest, safest, mosteffective, most cost-effective) has not been identified.