PICO Search

What is Pico searching?

PICO is a format for developing a good clinical research question prior to starting one’s research. It is a mnemonic used to describe the four elements of a sound clinical foreground question. The question needs to identify the patient or population intended to study, the intervention or treatment plan to use, the comparison of one intervention to another (if applicable) and the anticipated outcome. These make up the four elements of the PICO model: Patient/ Problem, Intervention, Comparison and Outcome. The PICO process starts with a case scenario from which a question is constructed which is relevant to the case and phrased in such a way as to facilitate finding an answer. Once a well-structured question is formulated, researchers will be in a better position to search the literature for evidence supporting their original PICO question. 

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