Exercise Science 115
Types of Clinical Questions
Therapy - What is the treatment for a disease?
Diagnosis - power of a test to differentiate between those with and without a disease?
Prognosis - a patient’s likely course over time due to factors other than interventions?
Etiology/Harm - effects of potentially harmful agents on the patient?
PICO
Four Elements of the Clinical Question
| Patient, population or problem | What are the characteristics of the patient or population (e.g. disease or condition, age, gender)? |
| Intervention or exposure | What is the main intervention of interest (e.g. drug or other treatment, diagnostic/screening test)? |
| Comparison | What is the alternative being considered (e.g. standard therapy, placebo, no treatment)? |
| Outcomes | What are the relevant outcomes (e.g. reduced risk of mortality, return to function, accurate diagnosis)? |
PICO Question
Step 1: An adult patient presents with lower back pain from working as bricklayer. When asked the patient states that they have decreased function in their back and is wondering if stabilization exercises may increase function over manual physical therapy.
Step 2: In what ways, do stabilization exercises (intervention) increase function (outcome) more effectively than manual therapy (comparison) for adults with lower back pain (patient)?
Step 3:
| Patient/Population | Intervention | Comparison | Outcomes |
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Exercise
A 64 year old obese male who has tried many ways to lose weight presents with a newspaper article about ‘fat-blazer’ (chitosan AKA chitin). He asks for your advice.
What is the question in PICO?
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