Back to: Develop Your Research Question

The comparison in your question can be specific or general. For example, do you want to know if Drug A is more effective than Drug B, or if medication is more effective than surgery?

In the case of stage 5 chronic kidney disease, the main treatment options are kidney transplant, peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis.

For the purposes of this course, let’s compare peritoneal dialysis (the intervention) with hemodialysis (the comparator).

Here’s the revised version of the original question:

 

 

This question is written to be neutral about whether peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis may be better.

If you phrased the question this way:  Is peritoneal dialysis better than hemodialysis for adults with stage 5 CKD? It might suggest that you’re biased towards peritoneal dialysis.

You’re almost done with the intervention and comparator. One the next page, you’ll consider a few last details.