Nursing Education
About Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) & PICO(T)
Evidenced-Based Practice (EBP)
“Evidence based nursing practice is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of theory-derived, research-based information in making decisions about care delivery to individuals or groups of patients and in consideration of individual needs and preferences.” [Ingersoll, G. L. (2000). Evidence-Based Nursing: What it is and what it isn’t. Nursing Outlook. 48(4). 151-152.]
PICO(T)
"PICO is a widely-used acronym to assist in remembering the key components of a clinical question. There are additional letters and frameworks to help you formulate a question fitting your research. Not all parts of PICO are required! PICO is a framework to help you narrow your topic, not a rule." --UNC Health Sciences Library library guide.
Try the PICOT search tool in CINAHL:
See these guides for a better understanding of EBP and the PICO(T) framework:
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EBP Research Guide (Paradise Valley CC)This web guide is a good introduction to the Evidence-Based research paper. Includes a section on PICO. Note that SDCC Library may not have the exact databases used in the rest of the guide, but you can still learn the process from the tutorials.
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Evidence-Based Practice in Health (U. of Canberra)This web guide has a page that breaks down PICO into the framework item, what to think about, and shows examples as a table. Note that the rest of this guide may refer to databases that SDCC Library does not have.
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Forming Focused Questions with PICO (U. of North Carolina)This web tutorial goes into the when, why, and how of using PICO questions. Includes a template of examples.
- Last Updated: Aug 15, 2025 10:23 PM
- URL: https://library.sdcity.edu/nursing-education
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