Asking a Question - NUR 5103 - Health Care Organizations - SBU Libraries at Southwest Baptist University Libraries

Step 1 in the EBP Process

The first step in the Evidence-Based Practice process is to ask a question. In order to be sure that you get the best answers, you need to make sure your question contains certain elements: the patient or problem your want to find out about, the intervention you would like to investigate, the intervention (or lack of an intervention) in current use that you would like to compare it to, and the outcome you might expect.

To make all that easier to remember, use the acronym PICO: (P) for patient or problem, (I) for intervention or indicator you want to investigate, (C) for the intervention you want to compare it to, and (O) for the outcome. There can be an optional (T) for time element or type of study.

There are several different ways in which to frame your question. Here are a few examples for framing your research question.