Master: Physician Assistant Research Guide

The PICOT Search tool helps medical researchers formulate clinical questions using guided search boxes based on the PICOT acronym. EBSCO Discovery Service and EBSCOhost support this by providing dedicated search boxes for each PICOT element:

• P – Population, problem, or patient (required): Identify the patient problem or population. Describe either the patient's chief complaint or generalize the patient's condition to a larger population.

• I - Intervention (required): Include the use of a specific diagnostic test, treatment, adjunctive therapy, medication, or recommendation to the patient to use a product or procedure.

• C - Comparison (recommended): The main alternative you are considering. It should be specific and limited to one alternative.

• O – Outcome (optional): Specify the result(s) of what you plan to accomplish, improve, or affect, and should be measurable. Specific outcomes will yield better search results and allow you to find the studies that focus on the outcomes you are searching for.

• T – Time (optional): Specify the time frame needed to achieve the Outcome.

This PICOT framework helps researchers create focused, effective research questions and search strategies, making their queries more precise and keyword-specific.

How are PICOT search terms combined to construct a Boolean search string?

The PICOT search tool will take your keywords and build them into a Boolean search string as follows:

(Problem) AND ((Intervention) AND (Comparison)) AND (Outcome) AND (Time)

In the following example, the researcher wants to know, "In newborns experiencing pain, is there evidence to suggest that skin to skin contact is more effective than administering oral sucrose to reduce pain?"

To search using PICOT:

1. On the basic or advanced search screen, click the PICOT Search link above the search box.

   

2. Reduce your question into specific keywords and enter them in the PICOT search box fields.

   Note: The (P)opulation and (I)ntervention fields must have terms entered. The (C)omparison, (O)utcome, and (T)ime or type fields are optional for searching.

   

3. After entering your terms, click Add to search. You are taken to the Advanced search screen with your query populated in the search box fields.

   Notes:

   • The search terms entered will be searched according to the search mode that's set under the "Search Options" tab of the New UI. Users can modify the search mode themselves, and customers can control the default search mode.

   • To learn more about how each search mode works, see: Applying Search Modes in EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service

   • To learn how to control the default Search Mode for all users, see step 7 of EBSCO Configuration Application - Configuring Search Settings for the New EBSCO Interfaces

4. Click the Search button on the Advanced search screen.

5. Your results are displayed.

   

Recommendations for Using PICOT

PICOT is a tool to get you started. You might want to refine your search after you see the initial results.

1. Only put 1 term or phrase in each PICOT box at a time; putting multiple terms within each box might not give you helpful results.

2. Start your search using broad or simplified terms to describe a condition or intervention; in many cases, these will be automatically mapped to the more specific descriptors in each database.

3. PICOT searches should be focused on matters of therapy, diagnosis, or prognosis. Use the Basic or Advanced search for basic research questions.

4. Do not include Boolean operators in your PICOT search, because they will be automatically added by the PICOT search tool.

5. Once you've submitted your initial search, if the results are not focused enough to what you want, click on All Filters to further narrow your search results