Nursing

Use the PICO acronym to help you form a research question. These categories will help you consider all the angles of your topic and come up with keywords to use when searching in a database. 

P: Patient, Population, or Problem

I: Intervention (or Exposure) 

C: Comparison (or Control)

O: Outcome 

Note that you might not have a C, or your C might be the absence of your Intervention. Considering the Comparison will still help you search for your topic.

CINAHL has a new feature that allows you to search your PICO question more easily. From the homepage of CINAHL, click the "PICO Search" option under the main search bar.

A PICO search box will pop up. Enter the corresponding keywords from your PICO question into the search boxes. The database will automatically combine your terms into an effective search string and give you relevant results.