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Evidence-based Medicine: Ask an Answerable Question (PICO)

An interdisciplinary guide to EBM resources.

Step 1

Ask: Ask an answerable clinical question based on the health needs of a specific patient (may use the PICO framework: Patient, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome).

Forming an EBP question

Breaking up your question into these 4 elements (which you can easily remember with the mnmeonic device PICO) will make your literature search process easier:

 

PICO Search Tools