PICO
In the PICO acronym, the letter P can refer to either “Patient,” “Problem,” or this other term.
What is Population?
This Boolean operator can be used to narrow a search by requiring both terms to be present.
What is AND?
This type of clinical question compares the sensitivity and/or specificity of tests.
What is Diagnosis?
These types of questions focus on building general knowledge and often begin with “what,” “why,” or “how.”
What are background questions?
This component in PICO identifies the alternative to the intervention, such as a placebo, standard care, or no treatment.
What is Comparison?
Applied after performing a keyword search, this tool can be used to further narrow your search results by criteria such as patient age or study type.
What is a filter?
This type of clinical question estimates the likely clinical course over time.
What is Prognosis?
MicroMedex and UptoDate are two examples of this type of evidence-based clinical resource, often used in real-time consultation.
What are Point of Care tools?
This PICO element defines what you are trying to measure or improve.
What is Outcome?
Used by the National Library of Medicine to index articles, these controlled vocabulary terms are used to improve search accuracy by grouping related concepts in biomedical literature.
What is/are MeSH or Medical Subject Headings?
This type of clinical question compares the effectiveness of different treatments.
What is Therapy?
This type of research article summarizes results from multiple studies and is often used for evidence-based practice.
What is a systematic review (or a meta-analysis)?
In the following case scenario, which would be considered the INTERVENTION when formulating a PICO?
A 58-year-old man with a history of hypertension presents to your clinic with persistent fatigue and headaches. His blood pressure is 150/95 mmHg despite lifestyle modifications. You are considering starting medication.
He asks whether a newer class of drugs (ACE inhibitors) would be better than the older medication (thiazide diuretics) in preventing future heart problems.
What are ACE inhibitors?
This PubMed tool uses predefined filters to help you quickly refine searches on clinical or disease-specific topics (such as Diagnosis, Therapy, etc.).
What is Clinical Queries?
This type of clinical question compares the risks associated with exposures, such as disease or lifestyle factor.
What is Harm (or Etiology)?
A benchmark against which NEW tests and treatments are compared, this is generally considered the most accurate, reliable diagnostic test or treatment protocol.
What is the gold standard?