Asking a focused clinical question using the pneumonic PICO (T) as it is a helpful approach to summarizing the literature that explores the effect of a specific therapy.
- P = Patient, Population or Problem
- I = Intervention
- C = Comparative Intervention
- O = Outcome
- T = Time Frame
Scenario
I'm a nurse at BAIC and many of my breast cancer patients want to know if scalp cooling will really work to reduce the amount of hair loss during their treatment. I would like to conduct a search to determine whether scalp cooling is an effective intervention to prevent hair loss in breast cancer patients undergoing treatment.
PICO Question
- P: Breast cancer patients
- I: Scalp cooling
- C: No scalp cooling
- O: Hair loss
- T: During active cancer treatment
In breast cancer patients, does scalp cooling decrease the amount of hair loss, during active cancer treatment?