Defining the Question
There are generally four parts to question building: the patient/problem, the intervention, the comparison and the outcome. You may have heard of the acronym PICO to refer to this question building process. Putting the questoin in the PICO format will help you find the evidence.
When should you use PICO?
- In academia when you are looking for evidence to support best practice
- In practice when you have a question about patient care
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!