Evidence-Based Practice / Unit 2 EBP 0190 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Building a PICOT Question
The idea
The technique: start from the outcome data showing a standard is not being met, decide which of the three kinds of question you are asking, choose the type and its template, then name each required element and assemble them into one non-directional sentence.
In practice
A unit's data showing an outcome below standard. A clinical question, not a research or QI one — so no direction in the outcome. Type: intervention. Population, the patients concerned. Intervention, the practice under consideration. Comparison, current practice named rather than called usual care. Outcome, the measure from the baseline data. Time, the period over which change would show. Assembled and read back against the data that prompted it.
Where people slip
The order matters. Choosing the type after writing the sentence produces a question no available design can answer, and nobody finds out until the search returns.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
- 0152Outcome Data Start the Question
- 0154What the Question Describes
- 0155Ask It So It Can Be Answered
- 0157The Question Guides the Search
- 0164PICOT
- 0167P — Population
- 0168I — Intervention or Issue of Interest
- 0169C — Comparison of Interest
- 0170O — Outcome
- 0171T — Time
- 0172Not Every Question Needs Every Element
- 0174Five Types of Clinical Question
- 0180Templates for Each Type
- 0183A Clinical Question Has No Direction
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Evidence-Based Practice