How to write a Good PICOT question and Sound Professional

How to write a Good PICOT question and Sound Professional

As outlined in the mnemonic analysis above, PICOT has five integral elements, which we now look at step-by-step.

Population

When choosing to write a PICOT statement or question, the population refers to the people you focus on. For instance, it could be a population in a given geographical area with some condition, say diabetes, heart diseases, cancers, or psychological/mental diseases. You can further narrow the population to gender, age, ethnicity, status, occupation, and the medical issue of interest. The commonality of these factors makes these groups considered a population for interest in a nurse change management plan. When selecting a population, ensure that you narrow it down to the individual patient representing the entire population for the generalizability of the findings.

Intervention

The interventions refer to the actions meant to improve the well-being or health of the patient. For instance, music or art therapy can be used to improve the well-being of patients with mental issues such as stress. You need to ask yourself:

• What therapy approach is best for the patient?
• What is the issue of priority?

The intervention can be pharmacologic such as medication, surgery, diagnostic testing/imaging, or non-pharmacologic action, such as patient education, pressure monitoring, or lifestyle change.

Comparison

As the name suggests, you have to compare your population of focus to that which is its exact opposite. The aim is to prove if the proposed change, intervention, treatment approach, diagnostic testing, follow-up, patient education, or lifestyle change is effective. It is the alternative that you are to compare with the intervention.  Since the PICO process depends on every entry that comes as a step-by-step process, you need to use the information from the population and intervention to complete the comparison. You can compare the intervention to other treatments, placebo, drugs, or diagnostic tests.  As you compare, you can eliminate the chances of misjudgment or biasness. You might realize that there is nothing to compare when developing a PICO question. But, if that is the case, you should not shiver; it is something that is expected.

Outcome

After completing the study on a population with a given intervention versus those with no intervention and making a comparison, it is now time to report what you expect to see. The outcomes, therefore, refer to the desired action or action of interest. It is the stage that you give the results if you are conducting a study. The outcome can be statistical findings or qualitative statements that have rigor, relevance, and authenticity. It can be in the form of risk of disease, risk of an adverse effect, rate of occurrence of an adverse outcome, or accuracy of a diagnosis. When writing the outcomes, you can do so with the patient-orientation point of view or a disease-orientation point of view for accuracy. In other instances, you can combine the two for a conclusive finding.

Time frame

in three months. Or in under a week. In some guides, you will get them ending as PICO, cutting out the T that stands for time. The timeframe is not as much necessary a parameter as it measures the duration a given intervention produces a given outcome. It also refers to how long the participants are observed. Unless requested to omit the time, you should include it both in your PICO statement and the PICOT question.

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