Banner Health FAQs

PICO is an acronym that describes a powerful structure for asking an "answerable clinical question" and targeting high-level evidence. PICO stands for:

P - Patient, Population, or Problem

I - Intervention: what treatment are you testing?

C - Comparison: to what treatment/intervention are you comparing your intervention? Placebo? The standard treatment? No intervention?

O - Outcome: what do you expect to measure, affect, or improve? 

T - Time Factors (optional; however, you may need to focus a particular span of time)

Example: In children with otitis media, what is the available evidence for efficacy of antibiotics? (Question for you to ponder: Is your core question one of diagnosis, prognosis, therapy, etiology, or diagnosis?)

Pro-tip: In order to come up with initial search terms/keywords, break your question down into its component parts. In this case, children, otitis media, antibiotics, and RCTs would be a great start.