Research Guides: DNP: Doctor of Nursing Practice: Evidence Based Practice/PICOT

Evidence Based Practice / PICOT

Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) or Evidence-Based Practice (EBP, or EBNP for nursing practice) is "the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values." Sackett, D. L. (2000). Evidence-based medicine: How to practice and teach EBM(2nd ed.). Edinburgh; New York: Churchill Livingstone.

For additional information about EBP, see:

Evidence-Based Practice, Step by Step
This collection of articles from the American Journal of Nursing was authored by faculty from the Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation's Center for the Advancement of Evidence-Based Practice. Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a problem-solving approach to the delivery of health care that integrates the best evidence from studies and patient care data with clinician expertise and patient preferences and values. The purpose of this series is to give nurses the knowledge and skills they need to implement EBP consistently, one step at a time.

To formulate questions in Evidence Based Practice, use the PICOT format.

PICOT stands for:

Population/ Patient Problem: Who is your patient? (Disease or Health status, age, race, sex)
Intervention: What do you plan to do for the patient? (Specific tests, therapies, medications)
Comparison: What is the alternative to your plan? (ie. No treatment, different type of treatment, etc.)
Outcome: What outcome do you seek? (Less symptoms, no symptoms, full health, etc.)
Time: What is the time frame? (This element is not always included.)

Your PICOT question will fall under one of these types:

Therapy
Diagnosis
Etiology
Prognosis
Intervention
Meaning

See the video tutorials below on this page for information about how to conduct a PICOT search at the Franklin University Library and how to formulate your PICOT question.

The following health/nursing databases have filters which will help you formulate your PICOT search:

Nursing & Allied Health This link opens in a new window
Mix of scholarly literature, clinical training videos, reference materials, and evidence-based resources, including dissertations and systematic reviews which takes a holistic and interdisciplinary approach.
CINAHL Plus with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Index, abstracts, and full text of the literature of nursing and allied health. You can select "PICO search" below the search boxes for an option to input search terms in the PICO format.
MEDLINE with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive index for medical journals, providing full text for more than 1,370 journals.

For additional information about how to conduct a PICOT search in the library's databases, see

Videos: Conducting a PICOT Search

Tutorial: PICO(T) Search at the Franklin University Library
PICO(T) -- Developing the Answerable Clinical Question

What's a Primary Source?

In nursing, the focus of a primary source is on original research from one research study. A primary source in nursing is an article written by the researcher(s) who performed the research experiment and includes original research data. Secondary sources are ones that summarize or compare primary research articles in a particular area, such as a Systematic Review. A primary research article contains the following:

Introduction: Research question which defines the aim of the research
Methodology
Results
Discussion/Conclusions
References

For example, this citation shows a primary source article:

Article Link (Moradipoor et al., 2016)
Moradipoor, S., Ismail, P., Etemad, A., Wan Sulaiman, W. A., & Ahmadloo, S. (2016). Expression profiling of genes related to endothelial cells biology in patients with type 2 diabetes and patients with prediabetes. BioMed Research International, 2016, 1–12. https://doi-org.links.franklin.edu/10.1155/2016/1845638

This article, though on a similar topic, is not a primary source even though it still looks very formal and official. Instead, it's an overview of previous research studies, without providing any new research.

Article Link (Ley, et al., 2016)
Ley, S. H., Ardisson Korat, A. V., Qi Sun, Tobias, D. K., Cuilin Zhang, Lu Qi, Willett, W. C., Manson, J. E., & Hu, F. B. (2016). Contribution of the nurses’ health studies to uncovering risk factors for type 2 diabetes: Diet, lifestyle, biomarkers, and genetics. American Journal of Public Health, 106(9), 1624–1630.