Evidence-Based Practice : What is "PICO" ?

In this video, Dr. Yen-Ying Lee clarifies the definition and the appropriate use of “PICO”.

To begin with, we should be able to formulate a PICO question under a given scenario, perform a literature search using the appropriate source(s), and apply PICO process in real practice to answer clinical questions when we complete this lesson.

Besides, we need to know the definition of “PICO”. P means a patient’s problem, I means the intervention, C means comparison, and finally, O represents the outcome.

Given a practice example, we can learn to recognize how to apply PICO in clinical cases.

From an evidence-based medicine pyramid, we can see the top of it is systematic reviews, which are considered to be the highest level of evidence. The next level is randomized controlled trials. As you go down, the level of evidence decreases. Finally, she lists several databases and elaborates on MeSH in Pubmed, which is essential for literature evaluating.

Have you used these sources before? Please share your experience below.

Please check the related file for week 5 course slides for your reference.