Advanced Nursing Inquiry And Evidence Based Practice
PICO Worksheet
Define your Question
using PICOT
P
Who is the Patient or Population (Ex., age, sex,
race, past medical history, etc.) or what is
the Problem (Ex., disease process) you are
interested in knowing more about?
I Are you considering an Intervention? (Ex.,
treatment, diagnostic test, etc.) Is there a specific
issue you’d like to investigate?
If experimental,
what research
design should be used to
compare the intervention
group with the comparison
(or control) group?
· randomized controlled trial
· cohort study
· case controlled studies
· case reports
· systematic reviews
· meta analysis
· editorials/expert opinions
Are you trying to Compare or decide between
two options (Ex., drugs, a drug and no medication
or placebo, or two diagnostic tests?) (Note: Your
clinical question does not always need a specific
comparison.)
O
What is the Outcome you’d like to achieve?
What are you trying to do for the patient? (Ex.,
relieve or eliminate symptoms? reduce number of
adverse events? improve function? improve test
scores?
State your Question
resulting from PICO:
List keywords from your
PICO question that can be
used for your search.
List other criteria –gender,
age, year of publication, or
language to be used to limit
your search.
List the databases you plan
to search: Ex., CINAHL.
(Use the databases page
from the Library website for
suggestions.)
