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Advanced Literature Searching For Health

2.2 Breaking down a scenario

Let's break our gestational diabetes example from the previous page into PICO form.

Example scenario:

A patient with gestational diabetes (GDM) has been recommended glucose-lowering drugs, but wants to know if diet supplements could be just as effective.

After applying PICO, we can see the most important parts of the scenario to focus on are:

P I C O
Gestational diabetes Glucose lowering drugs Dietary supplements management of GDM

 

Step 2: Decide on your searchable concepts 

After you have your question PICO-ed, your next step is deciding which parts of PICO to use in your search. You don't necessarily have to use them all! Check the table below to see why.

Hot Tips

  • A mnemonic is there as a guide to you - you don't need to use every part if it doesn't apply
  • The same or similar terms should not appear in more than one column, so make sure your concepts are distinct from one another 
  • Does your scenario specifically name a comparison or outcome that needs to be addressed? If not, ask yourself if these concepts can be left out of your search. The idea of "improvement" or "recovery" is not usually well described in titles or abstracts, so it is better to just search using the Population and Intervention instead.