SDCC Library: Nursing Education: EBP &amp; PICO

About Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) & PICO

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

"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.

See these guides for a better understanding of EBP and the PICO framework:

7 Steps to the Perfect PICO Search
A short .pdf created by EBSCO to demonstrate Evidenced-Based Practice using the PICO process with the CINAHL database.
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.
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.
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.
What is the PICO Process?
This 2-page guide by EBSCO has several examples of how to break down a question into the PICO components.