Essay Sample: The PICO Strategy for the Research Question

What does research mean to the following PICO questions for clinical practice?

Long-term care residents (P) who received high dose inactivated influenza vaccine (I) (C) compared to outcomes of those residents (O) who received the standard dose (C) from September 1, 2011-March 31,2013 (T).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The PICO questions approach to research is key in planning research strategy, as it helps the researcher in clinical practice to identify the significant elements of their research question. Thus, PICO is important to the research as it helps implement an evidence-based approach to study, by framing issues, it locates, carries out assessments, evaluates, and repeats as needed (Santos, Pimenta, and Nobre, 2007). Therefore, the above question does include PICO elements, that is, (P) representing the problem, patient, or the population in the long-term care for patients. (I) For intervention or indicator, that is, high dose inactivated influenza vaccine, (C) for comparison, the residents who received standard dose (O) outcome, results from the residents who received a different dose, and (T) time from September 1, 2011-March 31,2013. Thus, help implement evidence-based to research in clinical practice.

Part 2

In female adults ages, 18 and older (P) is cranberry juice (I) compared to probiotics(C) more effective in the prevention of urinary tract infection (O) Questions are to be answered thoroughly.

PICO plays a significant role in this question allowing the researcher to be able to translate natural language terms into subject description used in clinical research (Riva et al., 2012). The question to be used in research has been written using evidence-based models, as is evidence where (P) the Patient and population identified are female adults ages 18 and older, with (I) intervention of cranberry juice. The (C) comparison part of the question looks at the use of probiotics, and (O) outcome of interest, that is the prevention of urinary tract infection, thus identifying the major elements of the research question. Without the PICO research question approach, it makes it challenging to come up with researchable questions to initiate the research project. With the help of the PICO evidence-based approach, that allows the challenging of uncertainty in a clinical issue. When study applies the PICO format, then a problem can be easily be tested, and an analysis carried out to offer information or feedback regarding a clinical practice in question.

References

Riva, J. J., Malik, K. M., Burnie, S. J., Endicott, A. R., & Busse, J. W. (2012). What is your research question? An introduction to the PICOT format for clinicians. The Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, 56(3), 167.

Santos, C. M. D. C., Pimenta, C. A. D. M., & Nobre, M. R. C. (2007). The PICO strategy for the research question construction and evidence search. Revista latino-americana de enfermagem, 15(3), 508-511.