Learning the PICOT Process

Learning the PICOT Process

The PICOT process generally begins with a vague clinical query. Each element of the process helps develop a well-structured question. Once established, researchers can search for evidence that will help answer the inquiry. The elements of a PICOT question are:

P (Patient, population or problem)

Who or what is the patient, population or problem in question?

I (Intervention)

What is the intervention (action or treatment) being considered?

C (Comparison or control)

What other interventions should be considered?

O (Outcome or objective)

What is the desired or expected outcome or objective?

T (Time frame)

How long will it take to reach the desired outcome? Using the PICOT process helps develop a careful and thoughtful question that makes the search for evidence easier, the University of Oxford’s world-renowned Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine said. “The well-formed question makes it relatively straightforward to elicit and combine the appropriate terms needed to represent your need for information in the query language of whichever searching service is available to you,” the University of Oxford author said. “Once you have formed the question using the PICO structure, you can think about what type of question it is you are asking, and therefore what type of research would provide the best answer.”

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