PICO STATEMENT AND LITEATRE SEARCH

When you begin to formulate a PICOT statement/question there are 5 components that you need to identify. First identify your Population, then you will determine what your Intervention will be, then the Comparison, what your predicted Outcome will be, and finally, how long the proposed study will last.

(P) Population of Focus (adult males, 40-70 years of age, with co-morbidities)

(I) Intervention (this is what you are going to propose as a practice change – in detail)

(C) Comparison (this is your control group – those that will not receive the practice change; how will this group treatment be different – be specific)

(O) Outcome (what you believe will occur)

(T) Time (this is generally the time period that you will conduct your study – usually no longer than 6 months)

Then you will write your PICOT Question/Statement in a sentence format. You would Not include the “breakdown” (as shown above) in your PICOT statement. See the Example below:

Example of a PICOT question/statement:

For adult male surgical patients, ages 40-70 with multiple co-morbidities (P), will the use of a preoperative Low Molecular Weight Heparin (LMWH) protocol that includes medication and application of either a Sequential Compression Device (SCD) or TED hose (I), compared to patients who are treated with SCD or TED hose only (C), reduce the risk of the development of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) (O) in the postoperative recovery ICU phase over a 6 month period (T).