Communication Disorders: Evidence-Based Practice in Speech-Language Pathology

Developing PICO Questions

PICO is a mnemonic used to describe the four elements of a clinical question. 

• Population (P): What are the characteristics and/or condition of the group? 
• Intervention/Assessment (I): What screening, assessment, treatment, or service delivery model am I considering?
• Comparison (C): What is the main alternative to the intervention, assessment, or screening approach? 
• Outcome (O): What do you want to accomplish, measure or improve? 

Once you've identified the answers to these questions, you can establish your PICO question. 

Sample PICO Questions from ASHA

External Evidence

The scientific literature will provide you with the data, analysis, and conclusions you need to make your decision. In order to find this evidence, you'll need to develop a search strategy including where you'll search for your evidence and how you will search. You'll most likely start your search in an academic database that is specifically geared toward science, such as CINAHL, PubMed, or ERIC. You'll want to strategize how you'll search based on the parameters in the database. Finally, you'll want to keep track of your search strategies so you know how to replicate the search and eliminate duplicated results. 

Sample Search Strings from ASHA 

PICO Question: For children with autism spectrum disorder, what is the effect of pivotal response treatment on language development? 

ERIC contains education literature. 

(Child OR Children) AND ("autism spectrum disorder" OR autistic OR ASD) AND ("pivotal response treatment" OR PRT) AND language 

PubMed contains life science and biomedical literature. 

("Child"[Mesh] OR Child*) AND ("Autism Spectrum Disorder"[Mesh] OR "autism spectrum disorder" OR autistic OR ASD) AND ("pivotal response treatment" OR PRT) AND language