LibGuides v.2: Nursing Research: EBP: PICO Questions & Systematic Reviews

PICO Clinical Questions for EBP

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

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

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

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

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
EBP-based criteria are used to choose studies for high-level Systematic Reviews of 9000 clinical questions. We do not have a subscription to it, but you can see detailed, structured abstracts & plain language summaries which may provide sufficient information about any of Cochrane Reviews. Plus there are open-access reviews and most reviews over a year old have Free Access to full-text. Browse by topic or use the basic search feature to see if there is anything on your general subject in the Cochrane REVIEWS tab. Each review discusses the quality of the evidence and if more research is needed on the question.
NOTE: Nothing in the Clinical ANSWERS tab is available for free, but browsing the questions may give you topic ideas.

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