With the new feature of including PICO terms on review pages, you will be able to find the most relevant Cochrane evidence to answer your research or clinical question.
One way to construct a well-built question is to use the PICO model. PICO stands for Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcomes.
- Population (or Patient or Problem) What are the characteristics of the patient or population – for example condition?
- Intervention What is the intervention under consideration for this patient or population – for example a drug or surgical intervention?
- Comparison What is the alternative to the intervention ¬– for example a different drug or a placebo?
- Outcome What are the relevant outcomes – for example quality of life or adverse events?
Cochrane's Information Specialists and Data Curation Specialists have annotated the PICO terms of Cochrane Reviews using the Cochrane Vocabulary.
"Adding PICO summaries to Cochrane reviews will make Cochrane evidence more accessible and increase its use in health and care decisions, which is part of Cochrane’s mission.” says Cochrane’s Editor in Chief, Dr Karla Soares-Weiser.
PICO Search
You can already use PICO Search to find reviews in which the search term is used as a Population, Intervention, Comparison, or Outcome. For example, PICO Search enables you to find reviews which consider Diabetes specifically as a Population component or alternativity as an Outcome component, therefore enabling you to search with precision on the PICO terms which are of specific interest.
PICO at-a-glance
Every Cochrane Review from 2015 onwards will now have the PICO terms listed under the abstract. This PICO overview helps ensure you find the most relevant Cochrane evidence to answer your research or clinical question. You will also be able to click on the individual PICO terms to see search results for all our Reviews tagged with that PICO term.
“We worked directly with users of the Cochrane Library to learn about what improvements they wanted and how we could improve their journey on the site” said Rachel Craven, Head of Cochrane Library. “Having PICO terms expertly annotated in Cochrane Reviews can help answer your research and clinical questions – we’re excited to see them now prominently placed below each Cochrane Abstract.”
