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William Osler Health System - Resources for Evidence Based Practice : Using PICO

This guide provides introduction to Evidence-Based Practice Resources

Using PICO to forming focused question

What PICO mean?

The evidence-based practice process the first stage is formulating an answerable question. Evidence Based Practice is a process and the PICO question plays an important role in that process. This forms the foundation for quality searching. A well-formulated question will facilitate the search for evidence and will assist you in determining whether the evidence is relevant to your question.

An answerable question has a format that follows the PICO concept. The acronym translates to:

  • P – Patient//People/Problem - eg. age, sex, setting, ethnicity, condition, disease, type of patient or population
  • I  –  Intervention(s) - eg. treatment, medications, education, diagnostic tests or best practice(s)
  • C – Comparison (with other interventions of current practice) - may not be applicable if you looking for best practice
  • O – Outcome - in measurable terms, outcome expected based on your intervention, eg. decrease the fall rate

Why Should You Use PICO?

- Helps you form a focused question that will return relevant results

- Helps you retrieve a manageable amount of results

- Assists you in brainstorming keywords for your research

- Saves time!

When Should You Use PICO?

- When you are looking for evidence to support best practice

- When you have a question about patient care

P + I + C + O = Clinical question

P = Patient/Problem

Description of the patient - what are the most important characteristics? Is gender, age, or ethnicity relevant to the diagnosis or treatment of the problem?

What is the primary problem, disease, or co-existing condition?

I = Intervention

What do you want to do for the patient?

What main intervention, prognostic factor, or exposure are you considering?

C = Comparison

Are there standard or alternative treatments to compare with the planned intervention?

Keep in mind that not all clinical questions will have a comparison.

O = Outcome

What do you hope to accomplish measure, improve, or affect?

CINAHL & Evidence-Based Practice