One of the cornerstones of evidence-based practice is asking a good clinical question, but it is a skill that takes practice to master. A popular method to use when developing a clinical question is the PICO search strategy. It’s an abbreviation used to describe the four elements of a well-formed, and therefore searchable, question.

• P stands for the problem/patient
• I is the intervention used
• C is the comparison or control
• O is the outcome

Here’s a sample question: In adults with chronic migraines (P), is meditation (I) more effective than over the counter pain relievers (C) at relieving pain (O)? You could then take this question, pull out the important concepts to search for, and find an answer.

PICO questions are frequently associated with treatment questions like the one above. They can, however, be used to answer other question types, such as intervention, diagnosis, etiology questions. This handout from the American Academy of Ambulatory Care Nursing provides a template for the format of these questions.

Of course, there may be some cases when PICO isn’t the best fit. There are other question formats like SPIDER (sample, phenomenon of interest, design, evaluation, research type) that you can use. If you need help creating your clinical question or finding evidence to answer it, please Ask Dana for help!