LibGuides: Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM): Step 1: Ask the Question

PICO Method Overview

Your literature search will be more successful if you first spend some time developing a research question and then revisiting and revising that question.

The PICO Method is a technique used by researchers to help craft and revise a clinical question.

A.) Read the clinical question

B.) Identify the PICO elements (see chart below)

C.) Restate the clinical question

(Knowledge Translation Program, 2017)

PICO Method Examples 1-4

PICO Tutorials

EBM Pico Tutorial: Forming a Clinical Question
A 5-minute tutorial from the Boston University Medical Library
Formulating Your Questions Using PICO
Good literature searches begin with well-built, focused answerable questions. This tutorial teaches how to formulate such a question using the popular PICO model.
Framing Questions with PICO
4 minute video from Yale Medicine on the PICO Method and how it helps to break a research inquiry down into its important concepts.
How to ask a clinical question
This video tutorial from the Australian Physiotherapy Evidence Database explains how to ask clinical questions in PICO (Patient-Intervention-Comparison-Outcome) format.

PICO Resources

Asking Focused Questions
The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine develops, promotes and disseminates better evidence for healthcare.
Search MEDLINE/PubMed via PICO
Search MEDLINE/PubMed via PICO with Spelling Checker: Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome

Works Cited

Knowledge Translation Program. (2017). Practice formulating clinical questions. Evidence-Based Medicine Toolbox. https://ebm-tools.knowledgetranslation.net/resource/formulating-clinical