Help!! PICO question:patient abuse

[MaryCross021]

I need a PICO question for a research paper. I would like my topic to be patient abuse, but I can not think of PICO question. So far this is what I have

Population: Elderly patients

Intervention: abused by caregivers

Comparison: not abused by caregivers

O: ??????

or

Population: Nurses

Intervention: abuse patients

Comparison: do not abuse patients

Outcome: ???

I can't figure out an OUTCOME.

I would appreciate your help or any suggestions. Thank you!!

[CP2013]

Suffer a longer disease process?

Suffer more psychological trauma?

Are you trying for a physical, psychological, emotional, or what kind of outcome??

Also, are you going to need research articles to support your PICO? If so, try researching those topics and see which articles are out there so you can better formulate a PICO question.

[Shade43]

Patients don't get abused

Patients can get help if abused

[Stephalump]

I'm confused. Isn't the intervention what you would do to the patient vs the comparison which would be an alternative? I don't think abusing a pt is considered an intervention, which is why you can't think of an outcome.

If you want to study abused patients I think the population would be abused parents. Then what intervention you'd like to look into to address the needs of abused pts,, then what you're comparing the intervention to, and then the outcome you're looking for.

Unless you're just wanting to be more general, I guess. Then maybe the outcome could be they are more depressed? Less compliant? Something like that...

[BostonFNP, APRN]

\ said:

Population: Nurses

Intervention: abuse patients

Comparison: do not abuse patients

Outcome: ???

I can't figure out an OUTCOME.

I can tell you right now if your intervention is abusing patients your outcome will be jail time.

[CP2013]

I tried. Haha. I am working on PICO questions too, and have been having to re-work mine almost daily to get it to fit what I am trying to say. They are quite an interesting concept, and one I hope I never have to use again after this research course is done with!

[Stephalump]

Hey, we're all here learning ?

So you're trying to figure out if more patient discharge education will somehow reduce the incidence of elderly abuse? More abuse once they get home?

[BostonFNP, APRN]

\ said:

Thanks for your help, I guess I was confused with this "PICO question" format, and I got it mixed up. I feel real silly having that as an intervention. But I think I have come up with something better:

P: elderly patients

I: detailed discharge teachings (pamphlets, videos, websites, phone numbers for resources, etc) to caregivers

? non-detailed quick discharge teachings (verbal only) to caregivers

O: decreases the likelihood of caregivers abusing the patient

I appreciate your help. ?

Much better! Outcome shouldnt be biased though, so look at abuse rates in fmrhe following x years.

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

You'll have a very difficult time finding reliable research for a topic like this. The reason is that the best studies are controlled- meaning there is an experimental group and a control group. The variable (in your case it would be patient abuse) is changed with the experiment group, but not the control group. This increases the likelihood that any relationship found by the study is actually caused by the variable change. For ethical reasons, no one can abuse patients on purpose and see how that affects the patient. So the information you'll find on this will all be retrospective- meaning that someone found patients who said there were abused and interviewed them to look for trends. These studies are not as reliable or accurate.

I think you would have better luck choosing a topic that has been well researched in nursing- one that you can find controlled scientific research to support.

[BostonFNP, APRN]

\ said:

You'll have a very difficult time finding reliable research for a topic like this. The reason is that the best studies are controlled- meaning there is an experimental group and a control group. The variable (in your case it would be patient abuse) is changed with the experiment group, but not the control group. This increases the likelihood that any relationship found by the study is actually caused by the variable change. For ethical reasons, no one can abuse patients on purpose and see how that affects the patient. So the information you'll find on this will all be retrospective- meaning that someone found patients who said there were abused and interviewed them to look for trends. These studies are not as reliable or accurate.

I think you would have better luck choosing a topic that has been well researched in nursing- one that you can find controlled scientific research to support.

Abuse is the dependent variable. Eduction is the independent.

[Stephalump]

\ said:

Abuse is the dependent variable. Eduction is the independent.

Her pointreally is still valid. You're not going to find good research on the topic. It would most likely be historical due to the nature of the issue. How would you set up an unbiased rct for that question? I don't think you could.

[BostonFNP, APRN]

\ said:

Her pointreally is still valid. You're not going to find good research on the topic. It would most likely be historical due to the nature of the issue. How would you set up an unbiased rct for that question? I don't think you could.

Lots of ways you could go about it: there is a considerable amount of research regarding elser abuse screening, though there may be less on education (which means there is a gap in the literature for a new study).