What are the PICO elements in systematic review? – Pubrica

WHAT ARE THE PICO ELEMENTS IN SYSTEMATIC REVIEW An Academic presentation by Dr. Nancy Agens, Head, Technical Operations, Pubrica Group: www.pubrica.com Email: sales@pubrica.com

Today's Discussion Outlin e

In brief Introductio n PICO Conclusion

In Brief The PICO framework is used in evidence-based practice and especially in evidence-based medicine to formulate a clinical or healthcare related question. In a systematic review, the PICO framework is also used to develop literature search strategies to ensure the comprehensive and bias-free searches. The Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions mentioned using the PICO framework as a model for developing a review question, thus ensures that the relevant components of the question are well defined.

Introductio n A systematic review is a method supporting evidence-based practices and healthcare decisions primarily through quantitative approach.

The crucial factor for a systematic review is a comprehensive search process as it can be viewed as preventing the risk of bias and thus providing quality representation of available research.

Current research investigation process mainly focuses on different methods to ensure the comprehensive and bias-free searches for quantitative systematic reviews.

Through devising a search strategy, a search tool has been used in organizing framework to list terms in the search questions.

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The PICO framework focuses on the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes.

It is a commonly used tool quantitative systematic review to identify different components of clinical evidence for a systematic review, and the Cochrane Collaboration recognizes it.

A systematic review question typically focused on narrow parameters and usually fitted into the PICO question format.

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Figure 1: PICO

PIC O P – Patient | Population | Problem Most important characteristics of patients. Examples: Gender, age, and disease or condition.

I – Intervention or exposure Main intervention. Examples: Drug treatment, diagnostic and screening test.

C – Comparison or Control Main alternative. Examples: Standard therapy, placebo, no treatment and gold standard.

O – Outcome measures PICO can be used along with the variant such as PICOS (S-Study design), PICOC (CContext), and PICOT (T-timeframe).

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Table 1: Search Strategy

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Conclusio n The PICO model was developed to help structure a well-built clinical question and enable a literature search of relevant citations.

Since its introduction, it has played an essential role as a conceptualizing model for evidence-based medicine.

The PICO framework will also help in reducing the time and retrieving related documents, thus ensures bias-free quality systematic review, and it also helps to determine the transparency of evidence synthesis results and findings.

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