Library - Information skills online - Evidence-based

Your question

Step 1:

Creating a question from a scenario will help clarify what it is you want to investigate. This will then help you decide:

where to search and

what to type into the search box.

PICO is a popular framework used to make one sentence out of a scenario in preparation for searching for information.

You may know this model as PECOT or PICOT, where E is for Exposure and T is for Timeframe. There is also PICOTT where the 1st T is for type of question eg therapy, prognosis etc and the second T is for type of study eg rct, cohort etc

You will usually have something in the P and I/E sections. You don't always need to have something in the C, O or T components.
Often the combination of P and I is the best to begin with.

The PICO framework is mainly used in quantitative research. For more information and a worksheet see the University of Oxford, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine's Asking focused questions.

Qualitative research often uses the PEO framework where P is population, E is exposure and O is outcome. PICo is also useful where P realtes to the characteristics of the population group, patient or problem, I is Interest and relates to a defined event, activity, experience or process and Co is the context or setting.

Example

Scenario 1

You have been taking vitamin C supplements and you are still getting colds. You might ask yourself why is this happening.

PICO

P	common cold
I	Vitamin C supplements
C
O	prevent getting a cold

Convert PICO to a question

Can common colds [problem] be prevented by taking vitamin C supplements [intervention]?

Do vitamin C supplements prevent the common cold?

Does taking vitamin C supplements prevent getting a cold?

NOTE: Not everyone will word the question the same way.

Step 2:

Once a question is created, the next step is to identify the key words. This will help prepare for a literature search.
For each word or phrase think about synonyms, one word or two (eg healthcare vs health care) and variations in word endings.
Think about how you are going to join or combine the search words using AND and OR.

AND	All words must be found in each result eg, bariatric AND adolescents finds results with both topics. Use AND between each of your major concepts to ensure they are all present in your results. Some databases will automatically join the words with AND without you typing AND between words eg Google Scholar and PubMed	Narrows your search. Less results.
OR	Each record in your search results must contain at least one of the words eg, obese OR obesity OR overweight will find results with any of these words. Google Scholar and PubMed - OR must be in CAPS.	Broadens your search. OR = More
NOT	Results must not include a specific word. Can be useful to remove a concept from your search BUT use it with care. Some databases use AND NOT	Narrows your search. Less results.

Example search strategy:

Scenario 1

Do vitamin C supplements prevent the common cold?

vitamin c	AND	common cold
OR
ascorbic acid

Question - do we need to add supplement/s as part of the search or can we start fairly broad with eg: vitamin c AND common cold

Scenario 2

What is the best way to manage obsessive compulsive disorder in adolescents?

obsessive compulsive	AND	adolescent/s	AND	asian
OR		OR		OR
ocd		adolescence		chinese
		OR
		teen/s/teenagers
		OR
		youth/s
		OR
		young people

It may be helpful to specify a particular Asian ethnic group eg Chinese or Korean. If we add eg asian OR chinese as part of our search we may get relevant results. We will get results for studies in China whereas our scenario is a 'western context'. Should we remove asian from our search but leave chinese? We may need to do a broader search removing the ethnicity words from our search. Do we need to find additional information eg cultural values, ethnic minority teenagers and mental wellbeing such as the studies from Youth 2000 for a holistic response? Do we need to add an extra word or two to our search eg resilience, protective factor/s? There is quite a lot to think about in this scenario.

Scenario 3

Is it best to use a ct scan compared to an xray to confirm a diagnosis of orbital fracture in a child?

xray	AND	ct scan	AND	orbital fracture/s	AND	child
OR		OR				OR
x ray		computed tomography scan/s				children
						OR
						pediatric/s
						OR
						paediatric/s

NOTE: Depending where you do your search you might need to use " " (double speech marks) to indicate a phrase ie the words need to be next to each other eg " vitamin c", "x ray".

Quiz

When you search for 'vitamin C OR ascorbic acid' this will

When you search for vitamin C AND "common cold" this will

« Evidence Based Medicine & Practice

Types of studies »

Edit page