Subject Guides: Evidence Based Practice: Introduction to Systematic and Scoping Reviews: Developing a Search Strategy using PICO

Developing a Search Strategy using PICO

PICO is a useful tool for asking focused clinical questions.

Slightly different versions of this concept are used to search for quantitative and qualitative reviews, examples are given below.

From: Murdock University Systematic Reviews Research Guide

P	I	C	O
Population or Problem	Intervention or Exposure	Comparison	Outcome
What are the charactristics of the Population or patient? What is the Problem, condition or disease you are interested in?	How do you wish to Intervene - what do you want to do with this patient - treat, diagnose, observe, etc.?	What is the Comparison or alternative to the intervention - placebo, different drug or therapy, surgery, etc.?	What are the possible Outcomes - morbidity, death, complications, etc.?

Population or Problem

Intervention or Exposure

Comparison

Outcome

What are the charactristics of the Population or patient?

What is the Problem, condition or disease you are interested in?

How do you wish to Intervene - what do you want to do with this patient - treat, diagnose, observe, etc.?

What is the Comparison or alternative to the intervention - placebo, different drug or therapy, surgery, etc.?

What are the possible Outcomes - morbidity, death, complications, etc.?

To develop an effective search strategy, use the PICO worksheet below.

This includes identifying:

Here is an example of a clinical question that outlines the PICO components:

How would you begin searching for this topic? See the completed example worksheet below.

P	I	Co
Population or Problem	Interest	Context
What are the characteristics of the Population or the patient? What is the Problem, condition or disease you are interested in?	Interest relates to a defined event, activity, experience or process	Context is the setting or distinct characteristics

Population or Problem

Interest

Context

What are the characteristics of the Population or the patient?

What is the Problem, condition or disease you are interested in?

Interest relates to a defined event, activity, experience or process

Context is the setting or distinct characteristics

Here is an example of a clinical question that outlines the PICo components:

See the completed example worksheet below.

Two other mnemonics may also be used to create protocols for both qualitative and quantitative studies - SPIDER and SPICE.

SPIDER can be used for both qualitative and quantitative studies:

S	PI	D	E	R
Sample	Phenomenon of Interest	Design	Evaluation	Research Type
Sample size may very in qualitative and quantitative studies	Phenomena of Interest include behaviours, experiences and interventions	Design influences the strength of the study analysis and findings	Evaluation outcomes may include more subjective outcomes - such as views, attitudes, etc.	Research types include qualitative, quantitative or mixed method studies

Within social sciences research, SPICE may be more appropriate for formulating research questions:

S	P	I	C	E
Setting	Perspective	Intervention	Comparison	Evaluation
Setting is the context for the question - *where*	Perspective is the users, potential users, or stakeholders of the service - *for whom*	Intervention is the action taken for the users, potential users, or stakeholders - what	Comparison is the alternative actions or outcomes - *what else*	Evaluation is the result or measurement that will determine the success of the intervention - what result or *how well*