PICO Questions in Depth

What is a PICO question anyway?

Finding relevant medical information is often easier if you first develop a PICO question.  This is a way of formulating a medical question to better match the capabilities of database (MEDLINE, etc.) search engines. 

PICO is an acronym for:

  • Patient and Problem
    • How would you describe a group of patients similar to yours? What are the most important characteristics of the patient? This may include the primary problem, disease, or co-existing conditions. Sometimes the sex, age, or ethnicity of a patient might be relevant to the diagnosis or treatment of a disease.
  • Intervention
  • Comparison
    • What is the main alternative to compare with the intervention? Are you trying to decide between two drugs, a drug and no medication or placebo, or two diagnostic tests? Your clinical question may not always have a specific comparison.
  • Outcome

PICO Example:

In a 4 year old boy requiring antibiotics, do probiotics decrease the risk of developing antibiotic associated diarrhea?

P = 4 yo male on antibiotics
I = probiotics
C = none/placebo
O = decrease the risk of antibiotic associated diarrhea

PICO terms can be used to create a potential search strategy to search relevent EBM and health databases. Since terminology in the health in filled with synonyms, you may need to list and search multiple terms for a single concept:

P = antibiotics, antimicrobial agents
I = probiotic, probiotics, lactobacillus, acidophilus
O = diarrhea

From this PICO, a good search strategy might look like this:

(antibiotics OR antimicrobial agents) AND (probiotics OR lactobacillus OR acidophilus) AND diarrhea

Try using a PICO Worksheet to convert your scenario into a search query and process to find relevant articles in EBM resources and databases.

Page last updated: June 18, 2012
Questions or suggestions? Contact the Clinical Sciences Team