PICOT, also sometimes called PICO, is a question for developing a structured search strategy to find evidence-based clinical research. The anagram PICOT breaks down a clinical issue into parts, helping you identify the needed evidence.
The five elements of a PICOT question include:
| What It Stands For | Question to Answer | Examples | |
| P | Patient/Population/Problem | How would I describe the problem or group of patients similar to mine? |
Population: Age, gender, setting, ethnicity Problem: Work conditions, environments of care, variations in practice |
| I | Intervention | What is the intervention I am considering? | Treatments, standardized protocols, scales, and tools to assess something |
| C | Comparison/Control | Is there an alternative to compare with the intervention? | Standard of care |
| O | Outcome | What do I hope to measure, improve, accomplish, or affect? | Reduction in falls, decrease in post-surgical infections, decrease in post-surgery nausea and vomiting, decrease in recovery time, increase in patient satisfaction |
| T | Time (optional) | What is the period? | 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 1 year |
PICOT is more than a standard, topically-based research question (e.g., "What are the main contributors to childhood obesity?"). It is used to help identify the best evidence to improve healthcare outcomes, as finding high-quality research is a key part of evidence-based practice. A well-written PICOT question makes it easier to break down a search question into keywords that will find high-quality, relevant evidence in databases. However, before writing a PICOT question, you must do background and foreground research of the literature to find the full range of possible interventions. This pre-research will ensure you do not miss critical research on interventions that might fit your site well.
