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Physical Therapy Assistant: PICO

Welcome to the Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) learning guide. Use this guide to learning about Evidence-Based Practice, how to search for journal articles using the library databases, and much more.

What is PICO?

PICO is a mnemonic used to describe the four elements of a good clinical foreground question.

P.I.C.O.

Before you start your search, it is important to have a well-built question. One way to construct a well-built question is to use the PICO model. PICO stands for patient/population, intervention, comparison and outcomes.;

Patient/Population Intervention Comparison Outcomes

Who is your patient?

  • Age, sex, race, or patient
  • Primary problem
  • Health status

What do you plan on doing for the patient?;

  • Diagnostic test
  • Medication
  • Procedure

What alternative are you considering?

  • Another test, medication or procedure
  • Watchful waiting

What do wish to accomplish?

  • Accurate diagnosis
  • Relieve or improve symptoms
  • Maintain function

Example: In recent stroke patients, how does using virtual reality affect or improve balance?

Patient/Population Intervention Comparison Outcomes
  • Adult
  • Recent stroke 
  • Virtual Reality  
  • No Virtual Reality 
  • Improved Balance 

 

When you go to search the databases, you may not use all these terms in your search. For instance, you may start out using only the terms Virtual Reality and stroke patients.

  • If you retrieve too many results, add more terms to your search, or add more specific terms.
  • If you retrieve too few results, use fewer or more broad terms.

P.I.C.O.

Example Questions

1. In an adult with knee osteoarthritis (patient), can aquatic exercise (intervention) reduce pain and disability (outcome)?

2. Is a home program (intervention) as effective as a perceptual-motor program (comparison) in improving sitting postural control (outcome) in infants with cerebral palsy (patient)?