PICO is an acronym used by medical practicitoners, students and researchers to help focus a medical question/issue and develop an effective search strategy.
Use this worksheet to formulate your research strategy.
P Patient, Population or Problem
Who is the patient or population? (e.g. male, female, infant, adult)
What is the condition or disease you are interested in? (e.g. pregnancy, cancer)
I Intervention or exposure
What do you want to do with this patient? (e.g. surgery, administer drugs)
C Comparison
What is the alternative to the intervention? (e.g. do nothing, different drug)
O Outcome
What are the relevant outcomes? (e.g. infection, death)
Search Tips:
Here are some examples:
AND - use to connect two separate concepts to narrow the search (AND finds articles that contain BOTH terms)
OR - use to search for similar terms to expand the search (OR finds articles that contain EITHER term)
NOT - use to exclude terms to narrow the search (NOT find articles that contain one term but NOT the other)