Q. How do I find info for a PICO question for nursing?

To do a PICO assignment, you have to go through 2 stages:

1. Deciding on your question.
2. Finding research as evidence.

When deciding on your question, it's helpful to see what's out there. The TRIP database has a PICO search option and the Evidence Maps (top menu) are also good.

To use the PICO search, put in at least a couple of the options and see what comes up. You can then limit by different types of evidence on the right. Note: not all the options are available in the free version of TRIP. We do not subscribe to the Pro version.

The Evidence Maps are good for seeing what's been done on different conditions. Choose Evidence Maps and search for a condition or disease (not a treatment). I recommend setting the X Axis option to No. (number) of Records, so you can see which treatments have the most research done on them. The further right a treatment cluster is, the more articles have been written. The larger the circle, the more subjects/patients were included. And the more green the circle, the lower the risk of bias in the study design. Click on a circle to see more about the individual studies. More about TRIP in this video.

In CINAHL, you can search for nursing related articles. Use the Advanced Search to limit to Research Articles, age groups, specialties, nursing journals, and other options. More about finding research articles in CINAHL and other databases.