Finding health information with PICO

What is PICO?

Tool to generate a searchable question from a real-life health scenario, identify knowledge gaps and need for

research

What does PICO stand for?

Patient/ProblemInterventionComparisonOutcome

PATIENT/PROBLEM

• Who is the patient? – E.g. age, gender, race, other conditions?

• Or, what is the problem?– E.g. evidence on treating a specific disease or problem

INTERVENTION

• What is the treatment?• Could be the current treatment, or most

common/recommended treatment

COMPARISON

• What other treatment could be used?• Could be an alternative the patient wants to try…• …or could be no treatment at all!

OUTCOME

• What is the desired outcome?• AND/OR what could the negative outcomes be?

Clinical questions

• Use PICO to write an answerable question• …then use the question to generate search terms!

How about an example?

A woman visits a vaccination clinic with her young daughter and asks about the MMR vaccine. She’s heard a lot about the potential risks regarding autism, and is considering not having her child vaccinated.However, she’s also concerned about the risks to her child from having no vaccination, so is considering using a homeopathic remedy instead.

PICO elements

Patient Female child

Intervention MMR vaccine

Comparison No vaccinationHomeopathic remedy

Outcome Developing autismCatching (or not catching) measles, mumps or rubella

Clinical questions

• How effective is the MMR vaccine at preventing measles, mumps and rubella, compared with homeopathic remedies?

• What are the risks for children catching measles, mumps or rubella , compared to the chances of developing autism from the MMR vaccine?

Here’s another example…

An elderly woman is anxious about falling over and injuring herself, after experiencing a couple of minor falls at home. You think she might benefit from strength training, but she doesn’t think she can be helped.

…Want to have a go at this one?

What do you think?

How about a clinical question?

Can strength training improve stability and reduce incidents of falls in the elderly?

Patient Elderly female

Intervention Strength training

Comparison No intervention

Outcome Improved stabilityReduction in incidents of falls

PICO

• Patient/Problem– Who is the patient? Demographics/characteristics– OR what is the problem?

• Intervention– What is the current/recommended treatment?

• Comparison– What is the alternative?

• Outcome– What could happen? Good/bad?

Image credits

• Stethoscope, by Dr.Farouk on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/o3LcNr• Lightbulb, by James Bowe on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/66371K• Nurse with patient in City Hospital Tuberculosis Division,

1927, by Seattle Municipal Archives on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/67XUJ5

• Medical Drugs for Pharmacy Health Shop of Medicine, by epSos .de on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/dnd4f9

• Modern medicine of the past, by photosbyflick on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/5W9Aff

• Happy, by Adrian Berg on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/eNPkYg• Search! By Jeffrey Beall on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/4UokrH