4. The Steps in the Evidence Based
Medicine Process
ASSESS the patient
ASK the question
ACQUIRE the resources
APPRAISE the evaluation
APPLY to the patient
5. PICO or PICOTT –
How to ask the question
P – Population, patient, or patient problem
I – Intervention, treatment, or exposure
C – Comparison of a 2nd
intervention, treatment, exposure
O – Outcome
TT – What type of question do I have, what type
of study do I need?
6. Study Types
•Etiology – Causes of a health issue
•Diagnosis – Identification of a health issue
•Therapy - Treatment of a health issue
•Prognosis – Probability of recovery
8. Search Tips Review
1. Quotation marks A. Expands # of results
(“ “) B. Excludes # of results
2. AND C. Searches spelling
3. OR variations
4. NOT D. Searches multiple words
as a phrase
5. Wildcard (*)
E. Filters 2 sets of results to
find results that meet
BOTH search criteria
9. Mining the Article
Databases
With a well-formed PICOTT
question, now you are ready to
start searching for and
collecting groups of results
