Evidence-based Medicine and Dentistry

Creating a good PICO question takes some practice.

Here are some expert help suggestions for building a question

Formulating Answerable Clinical Questions - an interactive tutorial from the University of Toronto

More practice with questions Try your hand at formulating the question and then see what the experts came up with

Developing a Clinical Question This 5 minute interactive tutorial from BU Medical School takes you through the PICO process. As you enter your question elements, the program records them and then contrasts them with other possibilies. The is an award winning program that has been peer-reviewed by the AAMC MedEd Portal.

1. Ask
   • Use the PICO formula to create a good question:
     • P=PATIENT – Who is your patient?
     • I=INTERVENTION – Are you looking to diagnose? Treat? Learn about a prognosis?
     • C=COMPARISON – Is there a control? Placebo? A "gold standard"?
     • O=OUTCOME – What do you hope to accomplish? Better/best treatment? Decreased mortality?
   A good PICO might read "In an 86-year old man with coronary artery disease, is aspirin a more effective agent than heparin in reducing risk of stroke?"
   From: http://library.umassmed.edu/EBM/components.cfm

HealthLinks examples of PICO questions from the University of Washington