Week 4

Practice Consultations

➤ This week we will practice consulting via roleplaying exercises.
➤ We will also review some techniques that will help you improve the quality of your consultation.

Before Class

📖 Textbook Chapter 4.1 - 4.4

1. What are some tools you can use to help you organize your thoughts during a consulting session and remember what was discussed?

📖 What Is Your Research Question? An Introduction to the PICOT Format for Clinicians (15 minutes)

1. Use chat GPT to generate a hypothetical biostatistical consulting scenario. Ask the following questions that will assess the PICOT criteria:

   • What is the population of interest for this study?
     • Note the difference between the target population and the actual sample.
   • Are there any exclusion and/or inclusion criteria?
     • Note whether these criteria align with the target population.
   • Is there any issue with generalizability?
     • Note what mechanisms are suggested for improving generalizability.
   • What is the intervention/treatment group?
   • What is the comparison/control group?
   • What is the outcome of this study?
   • Is time an important component?

2. Is there else would you want to know about the research question? Think about general information about the study, the study design, and the variables being used.

3. Do you have an idea of a type of analysis you could perform? If not, what additional information do you think you might need from the client when making this determination?

In Class

Reflection

1. What was the investigator's primary research question?
2. What information was provided freely by the investigator, and what information did you need to ask probing questions in order to get?
3. What type of analysis do you think should be performed?