Nurses and other health professionals factor in expertise, evidence from research articles and studies, and patient values and preferences. If you are asked to do research on an evidence-based practice you'll need to ask a clinical question related to a particular patient or type of patient.
PICO is a way to organize the information.
Organizing Information with the PICO Tool
When you have a topic in mind, wrote down what you know so far for each part of PICO. You will now have some key words for your library research.
EXAMPLE
Your question is "Do follow up calls from a nurse after hospital discharge prevent patient readmission?"
P patients who have just been discharged from the hospital
I a phone call from a nurse
C any other protocols you find that would be alternatives to calling -- including no follow up calls, or a different way, such as emailing
O the outcome you want for these patients -- lower rates of readmission
Your keywords could be nurse, call, discharge, readmission.
source: MCC Library Nursing guide by Deb Baker