Table 1.
Categories and examples of research questions most frequently suggested by staff of 187 intensive care units
| Category | Examples of topics |
|---|---|
| Before and after admission to intensive care units | Does perioperative optimisation of surgical patients improve outcome? Do intensive care outpatient clinics* improve patient outcomes? |
| Structure and resources | Do small and large intensive care units have different outcomes? Does regionalisation of paediatric intensive care improve outcome? |
| High dependency care | Is the presence of a high dependency unit associated with improved hospital outcomes? Do such units deskill ward nurses? |
| Nursing practice | Does skill mix affect patient outcomes? Do children nursed in paediatric intensive care units have better quality of care than those nursed in general units? |
| Medical staffing | Does the number of consultants who cover an intensive care unit affect outcome? Is there a relation between consultant sessions/beds and outcome? |
| Transfers | Do specialised transport teams have better outcomes than non-specialist teams? Do transferred patients have poorer outcomes than non-transferred patients? |
| Process of care and clinical practice | Does multidisciplinary team working affect outcomes? Are pressure relieving mattresses cost effective? |
| Admission and discharge, criteria, protocols, and guidelines | Does the presence of guidelines or protocols influence outcomes of intensive care units? Does a nurse led protocol for extubation result in a shorter period of ventilatory support? |
| Colonisation and infection control | Does isolating patients in cubicles reduce the rate of infection? Does methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus affect patient outcomes in intensive care units? |
| Comfort, care, and communication | Are the needs of children met in adult intensive care units? Do visitors affect patient outcome? |
| Monitoring | Do pulmonary artery catheters change outcomes? Is gastric tonometry useful? |
| Organ system support and treatment | Does early enteral feeding improve outcome? Are steroids effective in the acute respiratory distress syndrome? |
| Training, information, and data handling and education | Do postmortem examinations in intensive care patients alter practice? Would the training of medical students be improved if they worked with intensive care nurses? |
| Audit; quality and risk assessment | What outcome measures should be used in intensive care units? Are long term outcomes worse for elderly people? |
| Ethics | Would risk management be improved if nursing staff wrote directly in medical notes? Should patients who have had a cardiac arrest and are unconscious be admitted to an intensive care unit? |
*
Clinics for following up the survivors of intensive care.