PICO is an acronym used to form clinical questions.
Evidence-based nursing (EBN) is an area of evidence-based practice that uses the best evidence available to make decisions about the care of individual patients in the field of nursing.
The well-built clinical question is the key first step to evidence-based decision making. The well-built clinical question synthesizes information about the patient, intervention/treatment, comparison treatment, and desired outcome in a form that is searchable and answerable. Most evidence-based practice uses the PICO framework or a variant to develop the well-built clinical question.
Example: You have an older male patient who presents with a cold and a sore throat. His daughter has suggested that he take Tylenol to reduce the soreness of his throat, but the patient has heard that echinacea tea is also a possible treatment.
Patient - Older male with sore throat
Intervention - Echinacea tea
Comparison - Tylenol
Outcome - Reduction of soreness
Well-Built Clinical Question: In adult men with sore throats, is consuming echinacea tea more effective than Tylenol at reducing pain and soreness?
