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Discussion

PICOT Question Help

I am working towards my BSN and am taking a research class online. We are required to a presentation on a PICOT question. I understand the basics of what the question consists but unsure how to actually write a good question. We were given a list of areas that we might consider doing.

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    Don't expect to write the perfect question right away. Expect to write a couple of drafts before refining it to the point at which you will be proud of it.

    1. Pick an area of the list you were given

    2. Identify a possible issue/question related to that are that would be of interest to you. You should probably go to your school's library site and look at the recent literature related to your area of interest to do that. You'll want to pick a topic for which some literature is available.

    3. Begin to write your first draft of your PICOT question. Identify the P, the I, C, etc. one at a time. Write them down in a list.

    4. Combine the PICOT elements into 1 question. This is your first draft.

    5. Critique it and refine it until you have a version of your question that meets all the criteria for a good PICOT question.

    After you get a rough draft written, maybe you could come back here and ask for some feedback.

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    So far I have "Does hand washing among healthcare workers reduce hospital acquired infections"?

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    So far I have "Does hand washing among healthcare workers reduce hospital acquired infections"?

    That's a good start.. you will want to identify your specific target population -- pediatrics, geriatrics, post-op patients, cancer patients, etc.

    You will need a comparison - hand washing with soap and water versus using a hand sanitizer for example.

    And finally what is your time frame - during current admission?

    Then you will have a fully formed PICOT research question.

    Best of luck.

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    Would I be able to change it to something like "How does preventative measures reduce the risk of nosocomial infections of pediatric patients in the ICU"?

    If I did something like this, would I also be able to include the NICU or just the PICU?

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    • Author

    Or "Does hand washing with soap and water or hand sanitizer among healthcare workers prevent nosocomial infections in the pediatric population"?

    Would I still be able to use NICU data in this or would I need to change my PICOT to say NICU instead of pediatric population?

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    Closer --- the elements of a PICOT question are:

    (P)opulation -- since Peds can generally be anywhere from birth to 21 years old.. I would suggest limiting this further... such as neonate specific birth to 1 month.. or limit peds in the questions to something like birth to 5 years old for example.

    (I)ndicator - hand washing with soap and water or hand sanitizer

    ©omparison - as opposed to what? not washing hands? Since the expectation of hand hygiene is expected with every patient, I wouldn't recommend making this not washing hands.

    (O)utcome - prevent nosocomial infections

    (T)ime - over what time frame would you be looking at?

    Are you actually going to be doing anything with this question or you simply submitting a well formatted PICOT question for the assignment? If you are expected to do any research based on the question, I would suggest that if you are doing it purely based on available research that you that you start looking at what's out there to limit your question.. you don't want a question that is too broad to be answered by the current research.. or are you actually going to be going to a facility performing your own research? This would also help narrow down the specifics of your question - I highly doubt that you would get any facility to agree to allow you to have a control group of patients in which no hand hygiene was preformed.

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    • Author

    Yes, we are doing an assignment with them. We are going to create a clinical question (known as a P-I-C-O-T question) and conduct a search to find the answer to that question in existing research articles, systematic reviews or guidelines. Then compile everything into a powerpoint.

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