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dentist with patientStep 1: Formulating the Question

With clinical cases, there is often a barrage of details to digest. To effectively search EBP resources, you first need to decide what details are important to the question at hand so you can formulate the question.

 A well-built clinical question includes the following components:

  • The patient’s disorder or disease
  • The intervention or finding under review
  • A comparison intervention (if applicable—not always present)
  • The outcome.

The acronym PICO assists in remembering the steps (P, patient or problem; I, intervention; C, comparison intervention; O, outcomes).