PICO is a format that helps you to construct an answerable clinical question and devise a strategy for searching for evidence.
The PICO question has 4 parts:
Patient - information about the patient e.g. age, diagnosis, other important criteria Intervention - treatment, exposure, diagnostic test Comparison - comparison treatment, exposure, diagnostic test (usually gold standard). Outcome - what you are trying to measure or see improvement in
Patient - infants with bronchiolitis
Intervention - nebulized hypertonic saline
Comparison - supportive care
Outcome - reduced length of hospital stay
Full PICO question:
In infants with bronchiolitis, does nebulized hypertonic saline reduce length of hospital stay compared to supportive care?