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NUR 3310: Nursing Research For Evidence Based Practice

This guide was created to help students with the research process for their EBP project in the Nursing Research course

Creating a PICO Question

PICO is an acronym to assist in remembering the key components of a clinical question. 

  • Patient
  • Intervention
  • Comparison
  • Outcome

Additional letters may be added for Timeframe, Type of study, Setting (PICOT, PICOS, PICOTS, PICOTTS)

Searching Tip: Start looking for articles once your PICO question is approved, because you will need many references to write about before your Annotated Bibliography is due. Use LibSearch or one of the Databases in this guide to start.

If you are not finding much using the PICO searches, only use the P & I parts of your question, which usually work better when you are beginning your research. Checking for a recent systematic review in CINAHL or the Cochrane Library (below) is also a good way to see an overview of the research so far, and identify if there are gaps in the literature where new studies are needed.

Searching for Systematic Reviews & Meta-analyses

  Searching for a Systematic Review or Meta-analysis in the CINAHL Nursing database:

  1. Go to CINAHL and use Basic or Advanced Search
  2. Add your search terms and scroll down to check the boxes for full-text and peer-reviewed
  3. Add the dates for the last 5 years (example: 2017 - 2022)
  4. Scroll down farther to a box on the left titled "Publication Type" and scroll inside the box. 
  5. Click on Meta-analysis or Systematic Review to limit what you find to articles that are the highest level of evidence.

 

Cochrane is adding PICO details to new reviews, and is beta-testing a PICO search tab on Advanced search.

PICO Templates & Worksheets