The table below outlines "the how" to break down the elements of your clinical question:
| Element of the Question | P (patient, problem, or population) | I (intervention) | C (comparison [optional]) | O (outcome) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Describe as accurately as possible the patient or group of patients of interest | What is the main intervention or therapy you wish to consider? Including an exposure to disease, a diagnostic test, a prognostic factor, a treatment, a patient perception, a risk factor, etc. | Is there an alternative treatment to compare? Including no disease, placebo, a different prognostic factor, absence of risk factor, etc. | What is the clinical outcome, including a time horizon if relevant? | |
Searching with Time (T)
Sometimes, the length of the intervention will be an important part of your clinical question. For example:
Take Note: Including time as an element of your search can be a challenge. There is no set unit for measuring time in clinical experiments. If you search for an experiment that ran for 1 month, you will miss experiments that ran for 4 weeks or 30 days. You may need to run multiple searches using different terms for your period of time, or you may need to construct a more complex search using Boolean operators.
