LibGuides: Nursing Research: EBP: PICO Questions & Systematic Reviews

PICO Clinical Questions for EBP

PICO is an acronym to assist in remembering the key components of a clinical question.

Patient
Intervention
Comparison
Outcome

Additional letters may be added for Timeframe, Type of study, Setting (PICOT, PICOS, PICOTS, PICOTTS)

Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step: Asking the Clinical Question - Susan B. Stillwell; AJN, American Journal of Nursing, March 2010, Volume 110, Issue 3, p. 58-61 doi: 10.1097/01.NAJ.0000368959.11129.79 - this article explains using PICOT to create a well-built clinical question to help you find the best evidence.

EBP: Searching for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
EBP-based criteria are used to choose studies for high-level Systematic Reviews of clinical questions. We do not have a subscription to it, but you can see detailed, structured abstracts & plain language summaries which may provide sufficient information about any of Cochrane Reviews. Plus there are open-access reviews and most reviews over a year old have Free Access to full-text. Browse by topic or use the basic search feature to see if there is anything on your general subject in the Cochrane REVIEWS tab. Each review discusses the quality of the evidence and if more research is needed on the question.
NOTE: Except for Covid-19 questions, nothing in the Clinical ANSWERS tab is available for free.

PubMed® EBP Online Training

Using PubMed in Evidence-Based Practice - Tutorial
This course will show you how to use evidence-based practice when searching clinical questions using PubMed®. It includes scenarios and Try It exercises.
Course Objectives:
1) Accurately and precisely describe your clinical question using PICO
2) Convert your research question into search terms for PubMed
3) Check that medical terms in your search map to Medical Subject Headings
4) Use appropriate filters to refine your search results & Clinical Queries to limit results to clinically relevant literature

More PICO Resources

NAU PICO Guide
Northern Arizona University PICO templates
Forming Focused Questions with PICO
from UNC Health Sciences Library
Asking the Well-Built Clinical Question
Tutorial developed by UNC and Duke.
Example PICOT questions
Downloads a worksheet from Sonoma State University, which includes examples

PICO Searches in Cochrane Systematic Reviews

The Advanced Search page in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews has a tab to test and give feedback on PICO searches to find relevant systematic reviews