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Nursing Resources

Tips for Clinical Questions

Tips for Clinical Questions 

If you are trying to define a good clinical foreground for a research question, try using PICO

Population/Patient/Problem -> "Among family-members of patients with early-onset dementia"

Intervention (cause/prognosis) -> "does listening to tranquil music" 

Comparison [optional] -> "as opposed to not listening to tranquil music"

Outcome -> "make a difference in the reduction of reported anxiety?" 


Using PICO also helps you structure your database searches. Some nursing databases, such as CINAHL, even give you the option to search using the PICO formula!

 

TIP: Sometimes you'll see the acronym as PICOT (T = Time). You can usually ignore the 'T'