HLTH 402: Disability Studies: Issues, Research & Policy

Start with a broad topic. It could be a health condition, assistive technology, or a health policy. Most importantly it should be of interest to you.

Refine Your Topic

Formulate a structured research question. A clearly-defined question will: 

• Focus your search so that it is more efficient and effective
• Make searching for evidence simpler as a well-formed question makes it easier to find and combine appropriate terms
• Help build your literature search strategy
• Help you identify relevant results and separate relevant results from irrelevant ones
• Improve your information retrieval

Example of a vague question

• Employment and persons with disabilities.

Example of a focused question

• What are the barriers to employment for persons with disabilities in Canada?

Applying a framework when developing a research question can help to identify the key concepts and determine inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Examples of Frameworks Include:

Extensions of the PICO Framework

Certain research questions may have additional elements. These can be incorporated into the PICO framework using the following letters (as PICOT, PICOS, PICOTT, PICOTS, or PICOTTS):

• T: time frame
• T: type of study
• S: setting